Reassessing Argentina's 1960s Conceptual Art and Grupo Arte de los Medios

Karen Benezra's 2012 article reexamines conceptual art's emergence in Argentina during the 1960s and 1970s, challenging prevailing interpretations of Latin American avant-gardes. It focuses on the Grupo Arte de los Medios, a collective guided by philosopher Oscar Masotta, which explored art's dematerialization as a form of ideology critique. The piece argues that this avant-garde responded self-reflexively to late capitalism's novel articulation in Argentina, forging a critical link between media art and militant politics among later successors. Benezra traces how Argentine artists defined radical politics by examining structural causes and symbolic forms, probing estrangement's limits. The article is published on ARTMargins Online and accessible via MIT Press under subscription-only access.