The Centro Cultural Ricardo Rojas occupies a central place in the understanding of Argentine art during the 1990s. Founded in 1984, it is a cultural extension of the Universidad de Buenos Aires that offers various activities including courses, talks, film presentations, etc. A few years after the Centro opened, the Galería del Centro Cultural Ricardo Rojas was opened in 1989; artist and art critic Jorge Gumier Maier served as its director, with Magdalena Jitrik joining shortly afterward as his associate. Although it was a marginal space within the Buenos Aires art scene at the time, it began to take on importance in 1991 and 1992. The artists of “El Rojas (Fabián Burgos, Graciela Hasper, Feliciano Centurión, Martín Di Girolamo, Alberto Goldestein, Sebastián Gordín, Miguel Harte, Agustín Inchausti, Luis Lindner, Nuna Magiante, Emiliano Miliyo, Esteban Pagés, Ariadna Pastorini, Marcelo Pombo, Cristina Schiavi, Enrique Marmora, Sergio Vila, Benito Laren, Omar Schiliro, Liliana Maresca and Alfredo Londaibere, among others), began to be incorporated into the agendas of key exhibition spaces, such as the ICI (Instituto de Cooperación Iberoamericana) del Centro Cultural de España and the Galería Ruth Benzacar. The reference to art trends of the past—such as Pop Art, Minimalism, Concrete Art (in the most personal of reformulations), as well as elements of Kitsch—have served to characterize the expressive styles of these artists. Towards the end of the decade, the artists who composed “el grupo del Rojas” were generally understood as the representatives of “Argentine art in the 1990s.” Página/12 [Page/12] reviewed all the exhibitions at the Galeria del Centro Cultural Ricardo Rojas, especially through art critic Fabián Lebenglik (b. 1961)’s articles, which were published in the visual arts section on Tuesdays. The title of this review has special relevance for its characterization of the Galería Rojas. Using a play on words, which is typical of this newspaper, [the author] implicitly places “la periferia del campo artístico” [the periphery of the art field] within the “centro de lo artístico” [the center of the arts]. Alfredo Lodaitzbehere later changed his name to Alfredo Londaibere.
