Macció, Rómulo – Argentina

The life of Rómulo Macció

Rómulo Macció was born in Buenos Aires in 1931. A self-taught painter and graphic artist, he was one of the principal representatives of the Argentine New Figuration.

After a career in advertising and graphic arts from 1945, creating theatre sets and producing graphic commissions, Macció started painting.

In 1958 he joined Argentina’s Boa group, which supported gestural automatism.

In 1961, the presentation of the exhibition “Other Figuration” along with Ernesto Deira, Luis Felipe Noé and Jorge de la Vega gave rise to the artistic phenomenon known as the New Figuration. This movement sought to overcome and renew forms of representation in which the dominant idea is that of traditional beauty.

In 1962, Argentina’s National Endowment for the Arts awarded Macció a scholarship, giving him the opportunity to study in Europe. The following year he took part in the Venice and Paris biennales, standing out with the originality of his work.

In 1956 he presented his first exhibition at Galería Galatea in Buenos Aires, where the artists Clorindo Testa and Rogelio Polesello showed interest in his work.

The work of Rómulo Macció

His period within the “Other Figuration” group is characterised by violent and harrowing gestures and the omnipresence of anthropomorphic fragments. Drawing is also strongly present, through forms that suggest vulnerable figures and the deformed faces of monstrous beings. Fragmented faces and the presence of beings that evoke madness recur in his work. With this aesthetic, Macció alludes to the fragmentation of humanity and identity, typical of anguished human beings.

Characteristic of his initial work is the presence of informal pictorial features, making use of stains, scribbles and drips.

From 1964, his work becomes more refined and his initial spontaneity gives way to the definition of shapes and figures. However, one constant in his work continues to be the presence of broad areas of pure colour, graphic annotations and discontinuous elements. With the passage of time, his work becomes less chaotic, although there is still anguish; the fragmented human figure and the depiction of diabolical faces imbue his works with sarcastic humour.

Critics usually categorise his art within the neofigurative movement with a surrealist approach and informalist characteristics. His life’s work evokes a universe of ideas and images that coexist anarchically, which was to be an oft-used resource both by Macció and the other members of the group.

Macció was also a landscape painter of cities. He defined himself as a man of the city and used his paintings to reflect the reality surrounding him. One example of this is his series Crónicas de Nueva York, as well as a set of landscapes based on the neighbourhood of La Boca and on Río de la Plata.

From his perspective as a portraitist of the urban world, in his paintings he narrates people’s lives and analyses the strange habitat that human beings have created, which sometimes welcomes them and at other times pushes them out. This shadowy grey landscape does not prevent him from remaining loyal to the use of colour on his palette. He therefore uses the angry yellow of the taxis to interrupt the monochrome streets and cement buildings, while the blues and reds dissolve the shapes reflected in the form of undulations on the mirrored surfaces covering the tall skyscrapers.

Silvia Sánchez
Curator