Jorge Gumier Maier
was 36 years old when he took over the direction of the art gallery that operated at the
Rojas Cultural Center
, which depends on the University of Buenos Aires (UBA).
Nobody knew at that time that his name would transcend the
underground
and become an obligatory mention in any
anthology of Argentine art of the 20th century.
Before Rojas and before becoming the enabler of an
art of the '90s
in Argentina, Gumier Maier was an artist, a performer, a connoisseur of art history, an actor who sometimes also created the scenery for his show. , an art critic, an illustrator.
That previous time is the one that curator Natalia Pineau, brain behind the exhibition, set out to rescue.
From the margins.
Gumier Maier in the 80s
, which is exhibited at the
National Museum of Fine Arts.
Gumier Maier died in
2021
at the age of 68.
He had spent recent times confined in his home in
Tigre
De el.
Although Argentine art from the '90s became fashionable in the last decade, he remained silent.
It is impossible to begin talking about this period without mentioning Rojas and the commitment he made to a group of artists from the Buenos Aires underground, which allowed them to
emerge from the basements to the lights of Corrientes Avenue.
Jorge Gumier Maier.
Artist and curator.
Photo Facebook
A long way
He studied at the Manuel Belgrano National School of Fine Arts, attended engraving workshops and was a visitor to the Di Tella Institute.
In parallel to art he practiced
Buddhism
, he went through the Faculty of
Psychology
and the
Revolutionary Communist Party
.
During the years prior to Rojas, Gumier Maier accumulated a wealth of information and experience that formed a conceptual system, which in turn made possible the creation of an era of Argentine art.
The curator takes the year
1978
as the beginning of the exhibition.
At that time Gumier Maier had resumed his artistic activities after the forced two-year break due to the military coup.
Construction site.
Gumier Maier in the MNBA.
Photo: archive
He produced
paintings, collages, drawings where the influence of
surrealism ,
metaphysical
painting
and the forms of
neo-figuration
can be seen
.
The portraits that open the exhibition are almost directly linked to this latest artistic movement.
Also at this time he began to work as a journalist and art critic.
Copies of the magazine are exhibited at the Bellas Artes
Imaginary Express
where he wrote a cover story dedicated to the career of
Jorge de la Vega
, who died shortly before in 1979, and also the review of the exhibition that
Omar Chabán
- before his name became associated with inevitable tragedy - exhibited in the gallery Multiple Art.
In the paintings of this period the erotic
theme is already evident
, coinciding with the sexual and cultural openness that was enabled with the return of
democracy
in Argentina.
Gumier Maier was active in the
Gay Action Group
(GAG) whose journalistic organ was the magazine
Sodoma
from where his political positions were raised and taboo topics until then were made visible.
The GAG's actions were aimed at making visible and
reversing years of attacks and violence
in public places.
Gumier Maier.
In the NBA.
Photo: archive
Paintings from this era show men with
toned bodies
where their erotic areas are highlighted through
close-up
compositions .
Paint on paper because it was an accessible material
and that allowed a large support to be made.
Some works were presented at
Café Einstein
, which would later become, along with
Parakultural
and
Cemento
, the emblems of meeting, party and experimentation of the '80s.
The portraits of her partners, lovers
and
men
that captivated her attention
are also from this time .
He draws and paints them in
sexualized
situations where the artist seems to pose a certain
distance
in contradiction to the closeness that would be expected of a lover.
He also made a series of plaster sculptures of the
hips and genitals
of some of these characters, whom he identified by their first name.
This last series was exhibited in 1981 at the
Christel K
gallery and photographs of the registry of works are preserved.
To make visible and achieve social recognition, the GAG supported the idea of constructing a
virile masculine homosexual
man who would not alter the continuity of gestures, forms of speech and inhabiting the daily lives of heterosexual men.
This correlation implied discrimination within the community, where "crazy women, queers and transsexual people" were left aside in the titanic task of social acceptance.
Gumier Maier.
In the NBA.
Photo: archive
Gumier Maier, the curator recalls in one of the many texts that accompanies the exhibition, describes and criticizes this strategy as it vindicates
marginalized forms of sexual dissidence.
Little by little, the artist gives way to the set designer and the costume designer until concluding with the performer facet.
Brunhilda Bayer
Argentina was experiencing its
golden century of the underground
in the mid-80s and its name began to circulate in these spaces that emerged after years of clandestinity and prohibition.
Brunilda Bayer
is the artist's alter ego,
“the Bahian and transvestite daughter of Osvaldo de Bayer
. ”
The famous photograph taken by
Facundo de Zuviría
, later titled Murga en San Telmo, where he shares the portrait with
Batato Barea
and
Alejandro Urdapilleta
, is part of the exhibition.
During the years before he took charge of the Rojas Cultural Center at the suggestion of critic Daniel Molina, he returned to large-format classical painting on paper.
He paints eroticized male bodies next to deep horizons, desolate landscapes of contested perspectives.
They are works in different shades of gray where metaphysical elements are traced, nods to Picasso and Catalan surrealism.
When materials were scarce, he used old
posters and even newspaper.
Also from these years, samples of his work as an illustrator and art critic for the magazines
El Porteño
and
Fin de Siglo are on display.
His works were accompanied by notes from later well-known journalists, such as Marcelo Zlotogwiazda.
In his journalistic role, he writes about the first exhibitions of artists that he would later take to exhibit at Rojas and over the years they would become references of the decade.
One of these criticisms was illustrated with the photograph of the work
Empanada criolla
by
Miguel Harte
, when it was far from becoming a mandatory name of the '90s.
The work, a painting made in acrylic that is characterized by its oval support and the striking animal that seems to steal an empanada, coincidentally hangs today, as part of the permanent exhibition of the Fine Arts, a few meters from the end of the Gumier Maier exhibition.
It is accompanied by works by
Liliana Maresca
and
Marcelo Pombo,
just to mention other names that boosted their careers thanks to Rojas and the eye of Gumier Maier.
File:
Jorge Gumier Maier.
From the margins.
Gumier Maier in the 80s.
In the National Museum of Fine Arts.
Avenida Libertador 1472, Tuesday to Friday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.;
Saturdays and Sundays, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Until March 24. Admission: free.
J.S.