Mc Entyre´s and Vidal´s prologue calls for an explanation I have been asked to make. The appropriate terminology “Generative Art” has been suggested by Ignacio Pirovano based on his work on “Georges Vantergerloo, his world and the creation of our times”.
Through his writings Vantongerloo expresses the different motivations for his creativity and Pirovano finds this term adequate.for its definition. He writes:”“Recognizing that up to that moment paintings were based on human figures, objects, dead nature and events in nature taken as models, I propose to define “Generative Art” as the one deciding to generate new shapes, to reflect the generative process of such shapes, the phenomena which give birth to them or the same pehenomena in movement developing and evolving in a continuous transformation. An example of this -- and my definition does not intend to be limiting –any virgin field where Vantongerloo is one of the first to take a risk”. As it can be perfectly seen the attitude facing Mac Entyre´s and Vidal´s artistic work is coincidental.
It does not come as a surprise then, that these two artists decide to adopt the definition within a concept framing their work. However it is necessary to make clear that in this case the label does not represent self-limitation or search for novelty. For those who do not trust the “a priori” definitions of the aesthetic fact, I have to remind them that in this case the artists simply “realized” that their work has antecedents and theroretical implications. It is the same distrust which makes them spread their attitude towards the position of other artists, in this particular case Pirovano´s statement through Vantongerloo´s works and ideas.
Pirovano himself fears and denounces the labelling and limitations in the vast field of crativity, but he is seduced by Vantongerloo because of his special universal focus and reproduces his main thought: “The painting, what we call painting, the one made in colours on a plain surface expressing brief psychological or poetical stories of men –- couldn´t it be expressed through the transformations in the matter or radiation, generating and showing the beauty of the secrets of creation? Sculpturing with its stress on volume --would it downgrade itself expressing the bodies and their radiations as well? What a broad field for future generations to create the Rainbow, the Aurora Borealis and the thousand beauties which represent beauty itself! Not painting the Rainbow as it is - -like a fax paper-- but generating beauty as the one enclosed in the “UNMEASURABLE”! Why not? Men have discovered the atom. It is just a question of finding a way of using it and finding out how to express it.
Pirovano finishes his work saying: --“All of the created field opens itself virgin to us”, these words openly manifest the large focus set on detecting a new sensitivity of which he is undoubtedly an authentic active member.
RAFAEL SQUIRRU
Director of the Museum of Modern Art in Buenos Aires
