“Plastic Writing Modalities in the Mid-Twentieth Century in Argentina transnational interimagetexts (1944-1968): inventionism and visual poetry first steps in the context of interartistics relationships”

BARISONE ORNELA SOLEDAD

Washington, DC

Congreso; LASA2013 / Towards a New Social Contract? XXXI International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association; 2013

Latin American Studies Association

This work is part of a PhD research project that analyzes problematic relationships between texts and images within plastic writing modalities in mid-twentieth century Argentina, particularly concrete poetry and its relations with contemporary lyric (1944-1968). Both the thesis for Licenciatura en Letras “Edgar Bayley y el Invencionismo. Los primeros pasos de la poesía concreta en Argentina”, and the ongoing doctoral project, describe the orientations of the avant-garde writers’ discourse in connection to the one of modernism in the mid 40’s and the late 60’s. By saying this, we refer to the study of groups of artists (painters, sculptors, poets) who participated in the Argentine cultural field incorporating proposals related to concrete art or, more specifically, concrete poetry. The temporal limits correspond to two autores-faro (Bourdieu 1995, Altamirano and Sarlo 2001, Giunta 2008) who, according to our consideration, enabled the articulation of proposals related to concrete art: Edgar Maldonado Bayley (1919-1990) and Edgardo Antonio Vigo (1927-1997). As regards this, art criticism (mostly) and literary criticism denied the emergence of concrete poetic modalities in Argentina. This research proposes to relativize this assumption and to probe into transpositions, institutional spheres and alternative discussion spheres, the links between poetry and painting, the observation of plastic writing modalities. Thus, we start from a claim by Edgar Bayley, one of the theoreticians of Argentine poetic inventionism and active participant in Arturo magazine (1944), in Asociación Arte Concreto-Invención (AACI) and entering the 50’s, editor and participant in Poesía Buenos Aires magazine (which links inventionists and surrealists, among other groups of poets). Edgar Bayley revises in the eighties the possibility of the formation of concrete groups in Argentina and makes reference to a genealogy we are trying to trace back, the temporary jump between poetic inventionism (overcoming Huidobro’s creationism – according to Bajarlía [1946]4-) and the articulations between what is concrete and inventive by Asociación Arte Concreto Invención5, the observation of the mutations of the concept “concrete” over the temporal definition of abstraction in Latin America, especially in Argentina. Vigo starts experimenting in the fifties making disciplines converge until he clearly delimits a concept of visual poetry. He also evidences strong connections with Brazilian concrete poetry constituted after ’56, through the edition of Diagonal Cero (1962-1969) magazine and the organization of Exposición Internacional de Novísima Poesía/69, held at Instituto Torcuato Di Tella and some time later at Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes entitled Novísima Poesía/69, among others. (Since) in the mid forties inventionist poetry shared political orientations regarding the transformation of the man (the concept of invention is thought as a revolutionary praxis 7 [Crispiani 2011: 52] with the plastic productions through publications, manifestos, magazines and frequent meetings among the members, we could not determine concrete poetic productions (such as those well known in the Brazilian field). Nevertheless, it is important to observe how the previous and partially concomitant concerns with the orthodoxal Brazilian concretism did not derive in a “movimiento de poesía concreta” (using a term that emphasizes solidity) in the Argentine field8, but also functioned as a platform for the development of the country and for the development of visual poetry and the poetic experimentations with the materiality of the support. In this sense we subscribe to a wide concept of the concrete (because we are aware of those mutations) in consonance with surrealism (dismissed by the Paulistas), although at some moments they emerge as spaces of action clearly defined by the actors or critics themselves. Three examples of that are: a text by Juan José Ceselli Poesía argentina de vanguardia surrealismo e invencionismo (1964), Literatura de Vanguardia de Juan Jacobo Bajarlía (1946) and “Antología de una nueva poesía” (1952) of Poesía Buenos Aires, a publication where inventionist poets published. 9. Thus far, we have advanced towards other communications about theoreticians who guide Arturo magazine (1944), Asociación Arte Concreto-Invención, magazines and publications related to inventionism (for example, Contemporánea magazine directed by Bajarlía), collection of poems by Bayley (En común, 1945-9) in which traces of the AACI postulates can be seen clearly and the paradigmatic case of the collection of poems Celebraciones (1968). In that collection, without exceeding the limits of paper, poetry acquires concrete characteristics, as claimed by Freidemberg (1999). In this opportunity, our main focus will be on the plastic-poetic exchange by Edgardo Vigo, his experiences in the early fifties, the edition of Diagonal Cero magazine as an experimental field of action between poetry and plastic, the organization of Exposición Novísima Poesía/69 as an institutional action that compromises directly the concept of the concrete within the visual poetry field. However, we will briefly describe in this research the relevant points provided by Inventionism. We claim that there are now defined practices and objects of study that establish varied modalities of pictorial literature (ekphrastic poems, poetic interpretation of paintings, styles and artistic techniques, visual texts composition, works by writers-artists or artists-writers, among others). The case we are interested in is the one of visual poetry in relation to the history of interartistic relations, since in plastic writing, there is an anchoring between literature and other arts, mainly painting, that is relevant to know about. We are also concerned with visual poetry in terms of the transformations of the literary genres system: seen as literary genre and mixed genre. We understand that there would be a close link between the conformation of the contemporary lyric that determines variations within the visual poetry genre (if we think of the vast tradition of carmina figurata, baroque mazes, emblems, acrostics, calligrammes, concrete poetry, etc.) regarded by De Cózar as literary devices (1991). In sum, the observation of the modalities leads us to consider their insertion in the history of interartistic and transnational relations, mainly in the visual poetry genre (Barisone 2013). The history of ut pictura poesis, in this context, would allow us to justify the conception of the Word as an object, and the way in which we approach the poem as a painting in the case of visual poetry by Vigo (neither a pictura nor a poesis). The temporal delimitation corresponds to the articulations within the concrete art (poetry and painting) argued after Arturo. Revista de artes abstractas (1944) (Pérez Barreiro 2007), followed by Edgardo Antonio Vigo’s contributions in the early 50’s (Barisone 2012a)10. The relationship between avant garde writers - neo avant garde writers has been studied by Andrea Giunta in “Adiós a la periferia” (Proa Foundation, August 2012). In that work, the investigator alters the properties of the links in the construction of narratives in terms of the history of South American modern art, and questions the linearity and schematization proposed by Alfred Barr. The cultural contacts explored by García (2011) show not only the shift in literary selections that go beyond the national limits after Arturo, but also a revision of the permeability in Max Bill’s discourse in South America before Europe; which implies strong repercussions on the delineation of the History of Art, based on the center-periphery relationship. Following this line, the contribution by Vigo from a “fuera del foco” (outside the geographical focus of the porteña capital), leads us to consider Giunta’s assertions regarding the inversion of the aforementioned directionality and, as a consequence, contributes to the design of new genealogies. The proposal makes it possible to counteract claims such as: the presence of pseudo-manifestations and the inexistence of concretism in Argentina; the nationalism from which emerged the idea of the concrete project in the mid 40’s (internationalist opening) [García 2011] and continued in the 60’s11; the perspective from which Vigo is studied: he generates a shift regarding the studies on Latin American conceptualism and the “salida a la calle” (“Museum taken to the streets”) / el “arte tocable” (tangible art), that were well established by the late 60’s (De Rueda 2003, Davis 2009, Bugnone 2011). The section “finals considerations” proposes a methodological conception based on transnationality and interartisticity (observable traits in the objects of study: Argentine inventionism, visual poetry and the autores-faro) and, according to the topic of the panel that invites us, the interimagetext category may be productive for the ongoing doctoral research.