Exhibitions in Buenos Aires... (Part II)

2:52 p.m.

Here we are, still enjoying the Art season in Buenos Aires. On the first floor of the building that houses the Amalia Lacroze de Fortabat's Collection there's now an exhibition of Argentine artist Roberto Aizenberg (1928-1996). It shows the importance of an artwork through time and how it affects future generations: its artistic offsprings.

Una visita al jardín de aclimatación, by Roberto Aizenberg (1962)

Technique: oil on canvas

The exhibition not only relates artistic descendants, but also familiar descendants. Thus in the painting Una visita al jardín de aclimatación we see a father and a son, watching a landscape from a cliff. Overwhelmed by the vastness, father and son hold hands as if unable to be alone in such nature.

The MNBA has a similar painting by Aizenberg, in which father and son are placed in front of a strange landscape. Over the line of the horizon, the blue sky, almost precious, resemble those of Renaissance. Both human figures, as in the previous painting, give their back to the public.

Padre e hijo contemplando la sombra de un día, by Roberto Aizenberg (1963)

Technique: oil on canvas / Measures: 44 x 35 cm

Such paintings can be fully understood if we go deep into the artist's family history. Aizenberg had no children of his own. His works of the 60s clearly show that absence, that unfulfilled wish of showing a son the wonders of the Universe.

By the end of the 60s he meets Matilde Herrera, who had three children, and adopts them. But during the terrible years of Argentina's Dictatorship, two of Matilde's son are kidnapped, together with the pregnant spouse of one of them. It's because of that tragic event that Aizenberg sketches the sculpture that can now be seen at the Parque de la Memoria in Costanera Norte. Three shapes: a man, a woman and a pregnant woman. The artist never got to see the finished work, but it was placed looking to the Río de la Plata, as so many of the "fathers and sons" in his paintings, overlooking an immense landscape that blends into the sky...