Máscaras (Masks)

Part of the “Nueva Figuración” group — along with artists Luis Felipe Noé, Jorge De la Vega and Ernesto Deira — Rómulo Macció (1931-2016) was an important artist during an exceptional chapter in Argentine art in the second half of the 20th century. His work, which intended to grasp the complexity of the human figure, sought to break with prevailing aesthetic standards while pursuing a postmodernist approach that valued gesture and spontaneity in figurative construction. Macció's paintings show mysterious and sometimes aggressive faces, as art critic Marta Traba has suggested. Regarding the artist’s craft, Macció said 'Painting is a mute craft, it is a hidden science. It is a mystery because it is not done, at least in my case, with formulas or conjectures, because before making it did not exist. It is what you can do or what you get. Go to the bullring like a bullfighter.'