THE REINA SOFÍA REVIVES ALBERTO GRECO’S LIVING ART

The Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid is hosting a wide-ranging retrospective of the work of Alberto Greco (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1931 – Barcelona, Spain, 1965). Viva el arte vivo revisits a decisive figure of the experimental avant-garde whose trajectory began with more traditional elements of painting and theater, only to swiftly abandon them in order to fully embrace the construction of his own persona and identity, and to establish living art as his defining hallmark.

In this voluntary departure from what might be understood as a conventional aesthetic program, Greco turned his life into a space of ideas, drawing on the media and propaganda to reinforce his actions. The exhibition brings together works produced between 1949 and 1965, the year of his untimely death. From his early Informalist paintings exploring materiality to photographic documentation of actions, drawings, collages, and part of his literary output, the show delves into the singular and radical nature of his practice.

Underlying this survey of his intense production is the critical role of his lived experience, shaped by an itinerary that took him from Buenos Aires to other parts of the Americas and Europe. In 1962, in Paris, Greco proclaimed the foundation of living art, a conceptual proposal that transformed his person, actions, time, and surroundings into potential artistic materials. Under this premise, he signed people and places, declared various cities and towns—such as Buenos Aires and Piedralaves—works of art, and called for direct engagement with the elements of reality.

In 1963 he settled in Madrid, where he expanded his practice by incorporating living art into other media such as drawings and collages that drew on popular culture. Experimental languages such as those associated with Fluxus, as well as socially engaged movements like the New Realisms, coexist in his work as influence or outcome. His understanding of the media and propaganda strategies, along with his use of diverse techniques to exalt and connect with the virtues of everyday life, enabled Greco to defend a radical gesture: the complete merging of art and life.

Alberto Greco. Viva el arte vivo can be seen through June 8 at the Museo Reina Sofía, Santa Isabel 52, Madrid (Spain).