Federico Peralta Ramos writes to the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation describing how he has spent the fellowship money awarded him: dinner at the Alvear Palace Hotel, payment of debts, investments, and purchases of a suit and artworks by friends. Peralta Ramos defines his work on the basis of the notion that “life is a work of art.”

Federico Manuel Peralta Ramos (1939–92) was an archetypical artist of the sixties whose work focused on linking art and life. His outstanding production includes paintings in ephemeral materials, the installation, Nosotros afuera [We, The Outsiders] (Instituto Torcuato Di Tella, 1965), and an extensive body of conceptual work based on writing. In 1968, he was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship. His decision to spend the money on a dinner at the Alvear Palace Hotel and purchase works of art gave rise to a heated discussion with that North American institution. He wrote the Mandamientos Gánicos [The Feel-Like-It Commandments] whose title entails a variation on the Spanish expressions, tener ganas and dar la gana, both “to feel like.” Starting in 1969, Peralta Ramos did performances on television shows. In 1970, in the style of Jorge de la Vega, he recorded “non-figurative songs,” such as Soy un pedazo de atmósfera [I Am a Bit of Atmosphere] and Tengo algo adentro que se llama el coso [I Have Something Inside Called the Thingamajig]. In 1972, he put himself on exhibit at the CAyC (Centro de Arte y Comunicación) [Art and Communication Center] to affirm the notion that “the object is the subject.” This document sheds light on Peralta Ramos’s notion that “the object is the subject,” a concept that was influenced, to a certain extent, by Alberto Greco (1931–65). Here, Peralta Ramos brazenly makes known the legendary ends to which he used the Guggenheim Fellowship (1968). This letter is a specific response to the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation’s irate reaction to what Peralta Ramos had done with the funds, which included purchasing works by Jorge de la Vega and Josefina Robirosa. In a way, Peralta Ramos is parodying his own upper middle class milieu: dinners at the fanciest of the traditional Buenos Aires hotels, financial investments, acquisition of works of art, and paying off debts. Thus, the revolutionary identification of art and life upheld by the avant-garde in 1968, a year crucial to the history of political art (see documents on the artwork-event Tucumán Arde [Tucumán Is Burning]), is rendered as a playful celebration of “the good life.”