Antonio Berni is an Argentinean artist born in Rosario (1905-81). In 1925, he began a period of European study, establishing himself in Paris; there he forged a link with both the Surrealist avant-garde and socialist ideas. When he returned to Argentina, he exhibited his Surrealist works at Amigos del Arte [Friends of Art] in 1932. The following year, Berni joined the Equipo Polígrafo [Polygraph Team] (organized by David Alfaro Siqueiros), which executed the mural Ejercicio Plástico at San Torcuato, in the outskirts of Buenos Aires. Berni developed his theory of New Realism, art with political and social commitment, based on a transcendent realism. In 1944, Berni formed the Taller de Arte Mural [Mural Art Workshop]. In the 1950s, he rendered paintings about peasantry, especially in the northern province of Santiago del Estero, where he launched his Juanito Laguna narrative series of collage paintings. In 1962, the artist was awarded the Grand Prize in Drawing and Printmaking at the Venice Biennial. The following year, Berni began his Ramona Montiel series. In the 1960s and 1970s—while continuing with his paintings, collages and prints—he created objects, installations and performance pieces, as well as exploring different stylistic variations of realistic figuration. Rubén Vela is a well-known Argentine poet who lived for a long period of time in Spain, where he studied Spanish culture, forming a bond with the Catalan art critic Juan Eduardo Cirlot. This document is interesting, since it gives us a look at an intellectual who has returned to Argentina and now analyzes the artistic process through the lens of his experience in Spain. In particular, he considers the relationship between national and international art from the perspective of the informalist movement. When he sees Berni’s huge Juanito Laguna collages exhibited at the Witcomb Gallery in Buenos Aires, Vela is convinced that they are an authentic expression of national art. To Vela, this is work that accepts the recent changes in international art, while using those changes in a local context.
