Otra Figuración

also: Another Figuration

movement 1961-1964 Argentina Latin America

Otra Figuración ("Another Figuration") was a short-lived Argentine art movement founded in 1961 by Jorge de la Vega, Ernesto Deira, Rómulo Macció and Luis Felipe Noé, who shared a studio in Buenos Aires and exhibited together. They championed a return to figurative painting at a moment when abstraction and geometric art dominated the Argentine avant-garde, working instead in an expressive, often grotesque idiom of bold color, dense paint and mixed media. Their eponymous exhibition reached the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in 1963 and won wide recognition, and the group became a catalyst for Nueva Figuración (New Figuration) across Latin America. Disbanded in 1964, its members went on to influential solo careers - Noé to boundary-stretching assemblages in New York, de la Vega to popular protest songs.

The Tribuna of the Uffizi (Zoffany)
The Tribuna of the Uffizi (Zoffany)Public domain (credit: Johann Zoffany) · source

Defining characteristics

  • A return to the human figure at the height of geometric abstraction
  • Bold, clashing color laid on in thick, expressive paint
  • Grotesque, distorted figures charged with social and psychological tension
  • Mixed media and collage-like, encrusted surfaces
  • Raw spontaneity over polished finish

Key figures

  • Jorge de la Vega (1930-1971) — Self-taught painter of explosive color; later a protest singer-songwriter
  • Ernesto Deira (1928-1986) — Painter of expressive, linear, often grotesque figures
  • Rómulo Macció (1931-2016) — Painter of social themes with an aesthetic of rebellion
  • Luis Felipe Noé (1933-2025) — Theorist of the group (Antiestética, 1965) who later made assemblages in New York

Sources

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