The exhibits consists of more than 40 paintings from Hlito, spanning the past thirty years. Many of these have either never been on exhibit before or are little known. "Alfredo Hlito. Metaphors of the visible", presented by la Fundación Telefónica, is the first broad anthology presented in Spain of one of the most important Argentine artists in the field of abstract art.

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The exhibit, organized by Jorge Cordonet, Nelly Perazzo and Liliana Piñeiro, is presented by la Fundación Telefónica and Telefónia Móviles, in conjunction with the Cultural Department of Argentina’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Argentine embassy in Spain. It is one of many activities underway as part of the cultural, social and educational exchange established between Argentina and the Telefónica Group and its Foundation.

This is the second time that la Fundación has focussed on the work of this unique figure in Argentine visual art: in 1994 the artist exhibited some of his paintings at the Contemporary Art in Argentina Collection.

The exhibit’s catalogue was a joint effort by CésarAlierta, Sergio Baur, Jorge Cordonet and Nelly Perazzo. It contains articles by Hlito himself, such as the following: "The status of concrete art" (Nueva Visión, 1955); "The issue of space in contemporary painting" (Ibid); "Iconostasis" (Correo de Arte, 1978) and "Subjects in painting" (Speech given upon entering the National Academy of Fine Arts in Argentina, 1986).

SPECTRES, EFFIGIES, SIMULATIONS AND ICONOSTASIS

The over 40 paintings exhibited at la Fundación Telefónica offer a significant panorama of Hlito’s production during the past thirty years, specifically, of the series known as Specters, Effigies, Simulations and Iconostasis. A large part of these pieces has never before been on exhibit in Spain. Apparent in all of them are three constants: lines, color and shapes in their pure state.

- Specters are works that are full of lyricism, with a great freshness and brightness with color.

- Effigies are pieces that possess a supposed reality and which stand out from their backgrounds.

- Simulations are landscapes in which the various elements attempt to unite with the background.

- With Iconostasis the surface takes on importance and the rhythms are regularly divided.

HLITO AND POETRY OF THE VISIBLE

Alfredo Hlito is one of the great Argentine artists to emerge from the decade of the 1940s and ‘50s. Together with Claudio Girola and Tomás Maldonado, he signed the Inventionist Document (Manifesto Invencionista) in 1946, as participants in the "battle unleashed by abstract art". Thus, they broke with figurative art and praised "rationalism and faith in the power of aesthetic invention."
Obsessed by modernism, they made art that also participated in everyday life, in terms of rational order and clarity; they were interested in architecture, graphic design and design in general.

In 1953 Hlito traveled to Europe, where he delved into the color of Cézanne, the whites of Mondrian; In Italy he is fascinated by Piero de la Francesca, Masaccio, etc.

In the early 60s Hlito explores the expressive quality of three elements: line, form and color, and he achieves control of the surface. Thus, his universe becomes one of authentic creation.

HLITO’S PICTORIAL STAGES

1945-1955:
Hlito explores the resources of visual art language. During these beginnings he is inspired by Torres García and his proposals in terms of vertical and horizontal qualities. With linear displacements of color and dynamic shapes, Hlito creates asymmetric compositions of great freedom and balance.

1955-1962:
He is introduced to great European painting. He experiments with new additive mixtures of color and the pointillist technique. He plays with space, in which the center dilates out towards the periphery and expands outside of the frame. He experiments with transparencies of various ranges atop the color. His conflict between line and color continues.

1962-1973:
He begins to explore his own visual technique. He plays with the strokes and cuts them into angles, and draws enigmas and obsessive images. The artist uses acrylic paint, mixing pink-whites, green-whites and blue-whites. It is during this period that the Effigies and the Simulations appear.

Alfredo Hlito, according to Hlito
"Subjects in Painting"

Since our president has asked me to think about a topic for this talk, I would like to tell you something about subjects in painting. For the benefit of my listeners, I must clarify that I will only refer to my own experience on the topic, attempting not to give in to the temptations of the broadness of this topic.

We all know what the word "subject" means. The subject is that to which we refer when we speak, think, write or paint. Without a doubt, we can turn thought itself into a subject, as well as writing, or painting, but normally the subject is something external and prior to the act of thinking, writing or painting. It is something to which we apply these capacitates. This explanation is a bit formalist, but it will suffice to outline correctly what I wish to say.

Around 1945, when I started out in what has been termed (for better or worse) abstract painting, I naïvely believed that the subject had been abolished from painting. "Abolition of the subject" was the expression that we liked to use and which we considered self-evident. It was clear that we were referring to the subjects that were so frequent in painting at that time; However, it was less clear what exactly we were proposing to paint, because, in fact, we did paint something: straight lines that formed rectangular spaces, which, in turn, we filled with colors. But we did not consider those lines and rectangles to be subjects; rather, it was as if these things were the essential elements of all painting, that which is left once all subjects were removed. Therefore, ours was not a subject like any other – it was painting revealed in all its splendor.

But it turned out that those lines and rectangles had been elevated to the level of painting by other painters. They knew very well how to invoke the universality and absoluteness of their motivations and they amply did so. However, it was inevitable that their achievements would turn into "subjects" for those who followed them.

I began to see that in the painting I was doing I was not working with elements with presumed absolute value. Indeed, no matter how elemental a pictorial theme may seem to us, it possesses all the complexities derived from the fact of having been painted on a surface that was blank before, one that could have had anything else painted upon it. There is nothing necessary or destined in it, except the will of the painter. This will must automatically turn into a subject, which the more elemental it is postulated to be, the less subject to changes and transformations.

As so many others, I wanted to take my own reduction of painting to a simple element, one that would not contain anything external or prior to the act of painting which, just like the lines and their combinations, would lead inevitably to a subject.

How else can the act of painting be reduced if not to putting down color by means of a brush? I made the brushstroke my element: a short brushstroke, with colors diluted to the point of transparency repeating and overlapping along the pencil tracks regularly drawn out on the canvass. The result pleased me more than my previous work had. It seemed that I had finally come to my own territory, one that I would be able to develop upon steadily in the future. I gave the name "specters" to this group of paintings done in the late 50s/early 60s because they made me think about the eruption of light through a dark screen.

I persevered years in this task until I mastered the trick of variations. Then I understood completely the meaning of that innocent line I was using as a guide. Crouching inside was the subject that I had wanted to eliminate forever. When I tried to get rid of that line all the energy of the brushstrokes restrained by it spread out uniformly and then there was no longer anything happening there that interested me.

Among other disappointments, this was the most disappointing of all. Today, I think that with that series of paintings I paid my tribute to a certain idea of painting in which I had been trained – the idea of a pure painting, without mixtures.

So what, then, is prior to the act of painting, that which should be constantly mixed? It is none other than the drawing, which can be called design or purpose. This diffuse energy that makes those who paint decided to go in one direction and not in all the other possible ones. Even those who attempt to paint without motifs or subjects are filtering the finding that illuminated them, the one they want to repeat. Without a subject, strictly speaking, one can only create one painting.

Drawing led me once again back to subject, but this time willingly. Today, I work as painters always have. First, I draw my subject, that which I want to paint, invoking simultaneously that other faculty strictly important to painters only, and which I sometimes possess – that of giving shape to the image that this subject has suggested to me. I beg your pardon for introducing a new concept which I consider important so late in my speech. Nonetheless, it is one worth developing – the concept of the image.


As a conclusion, let us say that even though the subject in painting is unavoidable, it is not all of the painting. It (the subject) continues to participate in the painting as if in a very unstable solution.

"Subjects in Painting"
Speech given upon entering the National Academy of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires, 1986. Artinf, number 83, year 16. 1992.

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