Horacio Garcia Rossi Landscape Paintings

Horacio Garcia Rossi, along with Morellet and J.Le Parc, though their works that were created in strict accordance with the rules of mathematics, are unstable. These models of Perpetuum mobile are inconceivably static and dynamic, abstract and concrete, clear and ambiguous, all at the same time. GRAV’s members rejected the idea of the Artist as a genius figure, emphasizing instead the importance of creative cooperation for the coming into being of a solid and unified basis of collective theoretical and practical experience. This, however, did not preclude the group from disagreements and conflicts, which were aggravated over time. After GRAV was dissolved in 1968 as a result of the apparent contradiction between their declared values (anonymity, etc.) and its individual members’ involvement in commercial art and other promotional activities, the artists mainly proceeded with their development of the same ideas and principles that had once brought them together. Horacio Garcia Rossi, the group’s leading figure, was born in 1929 in Buenos-Aires (Argentina). As a student of the National Academy of Fine Arts (Buenos-Aires) in 1950–57, he made the acquaintance of young artists who would later contribute to the founding of GRAV. Rossi’s early paintings are mainly experiments with flat black and white forms. A characteristic feature of his GRAV period works is the introduction of light and motion. His studies on the changeability problem took shape as a series of moving light installations named Unstable Light Boxes. Since then, light has been a key element of all his works. Rossi experimented with light’s expressive properties, playing not only with graphic vibration but also with its materiality. He put forth considerable effort to invent a dynamic alphabet whose every letter would be associated with an image, bright and vigorous, fitting with the letter’s shape and sound. His exercises in this sphere were crowned by a series of original portraits of names including those of the master’s family and fellow artists.