Roberto Aizenberg (Argentinian 1928-1996)

In 1950, at the age of 22, the Argentine artist Roberto Aizenberg left the study of architecture to take up painting. Those very studies about the construction of towers, buildings and edifices--would serve him well years later when he would obsessively take up the many stark but magical solitary structures, starting in the early 1950s and to the end of his life. These edifices resemble both sculptures and monuments and defy explanation and mystify us. His titles such as, Tower Destined for Meticulous Observations, 1963/1964 and others, such as Torre, 1982, hint at a psychological meaning and cultural symbolism. Partly influenced by the ideas of his teacher Juan Batlle Planas and the work of the Surrealists but also Pablo Picasso and Giorgio de Chirico, these compositions are sublime studies in geometry and abstraction as well.

Aizenberg once remarked: "To be a surrealist is to be born with a gift, to deeply feel--the impact of one's existence--to develop visionary virtues and through a long and patient labor of love, a constant questioning of our human existence." Indeed the artist found in geometry, a means to delve into the metaphysical--to finally arrive at a language of symbols that could express the spiritual.