Marcelo Eduardo Pacheco, art historian and collaborator of Magazín Literario's visual art section, is one of the most important personalities within the Argentinean art milieu. He has written numerous articles in national and international publications and is presently the curator in chief of the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA, Colección Constantini).
This article should be linked with the one that appears on the same page, also by Pacheco, titled “Arte por el arte: Una retrospectiva en el Centro Cultural Recoleta recupera el arte que pasó por el Rojas en los últimos siete años,” [Art for art's sake. A retrospective in the Centro Cultural Recoleta recovers the art that went through El Rojas during the last seven years], which gives us a synthesis of this institution’s trajectory.
In reference to the Polémica Zen, it is relevant because it mentions that “El Rojas” was the object of arguments and disputes within the local art scene, in addition to offering a summary of Gumier-Maier's “curatorial” stance, as he himself explained in “Tao del Arte,” the foreword of the exhibition catalog of the same name (record 769509).
The Centro Cultural Ricardo Rojas, founded in 1984, is a cultural extension organism of the Universidad de Buenos Aires in which various activities were developed, such as courses, conferences, film series, and the like. A few years after it opened in 1989, the Galería del Centro Cultural Ricardo Rojas was created in the entrance hall to the university campus and was directed by artist and art critic Jorge Gumier-Maier. Shortly thereafter, Magdalena Jitrik includes herself as an assistant.
The reference to poetics of the past, such as Pop, Minimalism, Concrete art (under very personal reformulations), in addition to kitsch elements, have helped characterize the resources behind the expressions of the Rojas artists.
The artists who participated in the El Tao del Arte exhibition are: Fabián Burgos, Nicolás Guagnini, Jorge Gumier Maier, Graciela Hasper, Fabio Kacero, Omar Schiliro, Pablo Siquier, Sergio Avello, Elba Bairon, Jane Brodie, Fabián Burgos, Feliciano Centurión, Alberto Goldenstein, Sebastián Gordín, Miguel Harte, Agustín Incháusti, Alejandro Kuropatwa, Fernanda Laguna, Benito Laren, Luis Lindner, Alfredo Londaibere, Liliana Maresca, Zaliante Mussetti, Ariadna Patorini, Marcelo Pombo, Cristina Schiavi, and Marcelo Zanelli.