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 Kosice believed that a fleeting physical interaction with an object superseded the notion of art as untouchable and self-contained.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.
Gallery label from Sur moderno: Journeys of Abstraction—The Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Gift, October 21, 2019–March 14, 2020
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.
Gallery label from New Perspectives in Latin American Art, 1930–2006: Selections from a Decade of Acquisitions, November 21, 2007–February 25, 2008
In the early 1940s, inspired by the materials in the leather shop he owned with his brother, Kosice began to make artworks that are very different from the static monuments of traditional modernist sculpture and question conventional approaches to material. This transformable object, made from the metal bands used to reinforce leather handbags, was intended to be touched and moved. (To preserve the sculpture, viewers are no longer allowed to handle it.) Kosice was a founder of the Argentine artist group MADI, one of the earliest in the Americas that was entirely devoted to abstraction. Escultura movil articulada exemplifies the primacy for MADI artists of unconventional artistic structures such as irregular, broken frames and linear forms.
Gallery label from On Line: Drawing Through the Twentieth Century, November 21, 2010-February 7, 2011
