User:AR-269-Chile

Alberto Greco was an Argentinian artist most known for his role in the 60’s Conceptualist art movement.

Overview
The conceptual art movement in Argentina was at the forefront of critiquing the current governing system. This movement accused the government of oppressing the people into subjugation and of crimes against humanity. The harsh censorship of Juan Carlos Onganía on every aspect of life, including artistic circles, brought about the closure of the Instituto Di Tella for exhibiting an artwork featuring a urinal. It was considered to be offensive and thus the most famous avant-garde cultural center in Latin America was shut down. In the midst of this, Alberto Greco advocated a kind of art that would provoke the people to talk about their reality, their world, what is happening in their lives, society, government and politics. Greco emphasized how to influence society, how to push people into action against the ruling elite.

Greco's theory was “vivo dito”, an expression of what is real, what is happening around you at the moment, capturing the now. For example, many of Greco's artworks included audience as the art, basically the viewer became part of the artwork. Through this type of artistic expression, creative action took place, it provoked the people to examine their lives, their society and their government. It was his strategy to promote a change that came about from within audience. Listen, here, now! Greco presented the idea of capturing the moment. To capture the moment, cinematographically, through reportage, you can transform the artwork to become a living testament to the actual moment in which it occurs, coming to life. This "happening" of the moment was extremely important to Greco and his work. It was a new genre of art. This new artistic movement compelled to capturing the now, the moment in which events actually happen was supposed to promote a change in the viewers, a call to action. There is a strong expressionist component to Greco, one that is linked in recording the moment, the now. Greco was apt at capturing what was taking place around him at the very moment that he was experiencing different events.

During 1947 and 1948 Alberto Greco assisted in the art schools of Cecilia Marcovich and Tomas Maldonado, two prominent art figures in the Argentinian art circles. During those years assisting within the art schools, Alberto Greco became highly influenced by these artists’ social perspectives. Argentina during the 1960’s was suffering from a repressive government under Onganía, who ousted Peron, the previous dictator. In 1955, President Juan Peron was removed from office and new era of Argentinian history began. There was a succession of weak democratic government and many militaristic interventions. These military interventions in the government led to clashes between radicalized social factions and the authoritarian elite.

Early Life
Greco was born in Buenos Aires in February 14, 1931. He was a prolific artist throughout his youth, even though he never graduated from art school. Instead Greco went to work and learned alongside Cecilia Marcovich and Thomas Maldonado, two well-known artists involved in the 1960's avant-garde art movements in Argentina. Greco’s personality was quite intolerant towards social injustice. He was extroverted and bold in the statements he made through his artwork. He was often described by his friends as the life of the party although he could be cruelly honest in his treatment of people. Greco’s forthcoming and direct nature could often get him into trouble. "People either loved him or hated him, but it was completely impossible to ignore him". At other times he was known to draw into himself.In 1954 Greco travelled to Europe. He had his first show at the gallery La Roue de Paris. After that he travelled between Argentina, Brazil and Europe intermittently but lived most of his life in Spain. The majority of his work that is recognized as part of his Vivo Dito experiment took place in 1963. Between 1963 and 1965 most of his artwork was directly pointing to some social or personally human issue Greco thought should be addressed. He was quite purposeful in his art to try and bring out a greater awareness of the human condition as a figure of art. Greco took his life in 1965. Many of his between those two years a very well-known and worth studying in detail.

Artworks
'"Thirty Mice for the New Generation” was Greco’s first live work of art in Paris. He presented the audience with live mice. The idea was to get at the fact that art is something that is alive, that breathes, that has movement. He presented this artwork in 1962. In the same year he published his manifesto, Vivo Dito which literally means the Living Finger . There is a tradition in art where artists sign their artworks. Greco adopted this but with a new twist. Walking around the city with a piece of chalk, he literally went about signing people. He was making the point that people are artworks, people are living artworks that he can point to. None of Greco's artworks are objects that remain stationary. Greco's artwork was focused on taking the art out of the gallery and into the ordinary life of people on the streets.

As part of his Vivo Dito Series in Madrid, he would sign people and draw a circle around where they stood to indicate the place of the person, the artwork. The interesting and unique aspect of his work is that once the artwork was done and the person continued on with their daily lives the art was gone, there is nothing to which one can peg to a wall and observe as Greco's artwork .He did utilize his knowledge as a photographer to capture these moments but it is in the moments that the artwork was done, after that there was no meaning beyond that moment in time. “A work has meaning as long as it is made as a total adventure without knowing what is going to happen. Once it’s finished, it doesn’t matter anymore, it has become a corpse. So let it rest in peace. The contemporary artist has lost his sense of eternity.” –Alberto Greco “Vivo Ditto Manifesto”- 1963. Greco's memory is in the ways in which he was able to call people's attention to what they were ignoring in daily life. To show that the things which we see in the world are part of a greater artwork that is constantly on display. Greco's art focused on bringing the art out of the galleries, museums, even out of the canvas. He did this in ways that were tangible to the audience, which involved the audience and perhaps carried greater significance to those who experienced the artwork along with him.

Manifesto
Vivo Dito art means showing and encountering the object in its own place. That is why many of Greco’s vivo ditos depict him, in the streets, holding signs among the people. Greco was attempting to get at the idea that you yourself can become part of the artwork as you are experiencing it at that moment. There is no need for a refined symmetry of works, it should instead be asymmetrical, irregular because life is rarely ever so structured and fixed. This also gives the artwork the opportunity to resonate in different ways with different viewers. Greco's artworks had unique ways of getting to the audience and often times has different effects on people.

“Today I am more interested in anyone at all recounting his life on the street or in a streetcar than in any polished, technical account by a writer. That is why I believe in painting without painters and in literature without writers. This explains why, in recent years, the visual arts have consciously found recourse in chance. It was a way of discovering the other side of reason. All our conscious thought, all our reason limits us, and we fall, very easily, into elementary and limited structures. “Always go in the direction opposite to the one you should. It’s the only way to get somewhere.” I find that stupendous" . Greco was unafraid to utilize this thought in his art by bringing out of its normal context. Greco attempted to break through to his generation a message that art can be encountered anywhere. In the streets, on the train, in the market. It is where interaction with the object of artwork, whether it be a person, an animal or any living thing, resonates with the viewer, with the audience. Greco aimed at getting the audience to interact with the artwork. One of the most important aspect of his artwork was that he awakened the viewers to the reality of art around them. The reality that art can be found in the ordinary things.