Collage V
Libero Badii
,Mixed media on hardboard, 57 × 35cm.
Libero Badii was one of the most important sculptors in contemporary Argentinean art. He worked in etching, screen printing, ceramics, and, during the latter years of his life, painting. The change that led him to painting occurred when he left sculpture’s noblest materials –bronze and stone– to one side in order to begin work on a series titled Muñecos (Dolls) in polychrome wood. El uso del color ligó a Badii a las culturas precolombinas; las de México, en este caso. This induced him to apply color to his sculptures, and then to delve into painting completely. The four paintings that form a part of this collection correspond to this period of investigation into color. Collage I and Collage V, both from 1983, are still related to Muñecos (Dolls), on account of the powerfully synthetic nature of the figures and the introduction of points and lines, which were already present in his sculptures, to delineate tensions within volumes. According to Badii, a point was a center of cosmic immanence, which he associated with the sinister, with the unapproachable. Now, he places them on the plane of the canvas with exactly the same objective, adhering pieces of colored paper. Although both collages mark a turning point in his work, they can also be seen as incised bas-reliefs, conceived of in the same manner as the rock slabs of the Chavín culture from northern Peru. The different figures are clearly defined, articulated by means of flat planes of pure color and spatial relationships generated by the pattern of points and lines.