Carlos Alonso: “Hay que comer”

The Argentinian artist Carlos Alonso, born in 1929 and boasting great virtuosity and evident technical mastery, experiments with the logic of the events and the way they should be depicted. His work invites the spectator to enter into a visual game involving ambiguous formal categories that automatically trigger questions. His impeccably fashioned works and unmistakable style are a testimony of the tragic history of his country and his drawings are inhabited by aesthetics and ideology. He began to work on his repertoire of elements and compositive conceptions in the second half of the sixties, and consolidated it in the first half of the seventies. But the amazing thing in Alonso’s case is that he saw all the things that were going to happen to his country before they actually happened, that is, he foresaw what was to come. The artist gave shape to this visionary condition in the midst of a wealth of formal experimentation. In short, Alonso’s oeuvre is characterised by its ideological content, its political intention and its technical mastery.