Que corrían mordiéndose [Those Who Run Biting Each Other]

Although he was not a formal member of the Nueva Figuración [New Figuration] movement that revolutionized figurative art in 1960s Argentina, Carlos Alonso’s work shares many of the characteristics of this movement: a loose and gestural line, anxiety-ridden subject matter, and dynamic composition. Unlike the Nueva Figuración artists, but like his Mexican contemporary José Luis Cuevas, Alonso largely limited his production to small-scale works on paper. In "Que corrían mordiéndose," we see the scene from Dante’s "Divine Comedy" in which Virgil observes doomed souls fleeing from the torment of birdlike creatures. Here a massed grouping of ancient and contemporary characters emerges from the dense, nervous calligraphy, including a policeman and what appear to be Roman soldiers. The cloudlike forms at the top of the image, showing an Abstract Expressionist influence, are the source for the nightmarish creatures. That Alonso also published satirical cartoons in many of the major magazines of the time is indicative of the rich cross-pollination between high and low art forms that occurred in 1960s Argentina.