Gyula Kosice (Fernando Fallik)

Composed of metal bands linked by pins, this lightweight work was originally intended to be handled and molded into different shapes by the viewer. Kosice believed that a fleeting physical interaction with an object superseded the notion of art as untouchable and self-contained. Sculptures like this one “require the viewer’s participation,” he noted, “because if there is no viewer to lend them movement, they are pointless.” Although shiny and sleek, even futuristic looking, the sculpture’s brass strips were among the humble everyday tools used by Kosice’s father to reinforce leather bags handmade in their family’s workshop.

In 1946, Kosice, along with other Argentine artists, founded the MADI movement, one of the earliest artistic groups entirely devoted to nonobjective abstraction in the Americas. He began his landmark production of unconventional sculptural forms in the early 1940s. Inspired by the raw, nontraditional materials in the leather shop he owned with his brother, Kosice developed artworks that are in a permanent state of change. This transformable sculpture is made from metal bands used to reinforce leather handbags. Intended to be touched and moved by the viewer, it defies the idea of sculpture as a static monument and exemplifies the primacy for MADI artists of peripheral, unconventional artistic structures, such as irregular, broken frames and forms without default positions. For conservation reasons, viewers are no longer allowed to manipulate the sculpture.