Pintura [Painting]

While never at the center of the mainstream of Argentine art, Roberto Aizenberg was still influential and respected in that world. Despite a flourishing experimental literary scene, Buenos Aires never produced a fully fledged Surrealist movement in the visual arts, making Aizenberg perhaps the closest thing to an Argentine Surrealist. He developed a unique painting technique, applying wet-on-wet oils onto canvas that he mounted on hard board. The result was a series of paintings that glow with a characteristic interior light, recalling Renaissance panels in their clearly defined detail and luminosity. Aizenberg’s subjects were often strange cityscapes punctuated with towers, and Pintura is a radiant example from that body of work. The light emerging from behind the towers here has an ominous quality, suggesting either a smog-filled urban sunset or perhaps a more otherworldly presence.