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From its independence in 1810 until the economic crisis of 2001, Argentina was perceived as a modern country with a powerful economic system, a strong middle class, a large European-immigrant population, and an almost nonexistent indigenous culture. This perception differs greatly from the way that other Latin American countries have been viewed, and underlines the difference between Argentina’s colonial and postcolonial process and those of its neighbors. Comprising three hundred works by sixty artists, this exhibition examines crucial periods and aesthetic movements in which photography had a critical role, producing—and, at times, dismantling—national constructions, utopian visions, and avant-garde artistic trends.

Combining art historical and scientific analysis, experts from the Getty Conservation Institute and Getty Research Institute have collaborated with the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros to examine the formal strategies and material choices of avant-garde painters and sculptors associated with the Concrete art movement in Argentina and Brazil. These works of geometric abstraction, created between 1946 and 1962, are presented alongside information on the way artists pioneered new techniques and materials.