Martha Boto


Martha Boto was an Argentinian artist. Boto was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and was co-founder of the Group of Non-Figurative Artists of Argentina. She is considered to be a pioneer of kinetic and programmed art.

Life

Coming from a family of artists, where they always supported her in her vocation. She studied drawing and painting at Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes in 1944, and graduated in 1950.
She moved to Paris in 1959 with her husband and collaborator Gregorio Vardanega, where she lived until her death in 2004.

Work

Boto's earliest work was primarily geometric abstractions. During the 50s she had her first concerns regarding space, which ended in creations of structures where she made use of plexiglass with colored water. By 1956, she joined the Concrete art group "Arte Nuevo".
She was among the first artists in Buenos Aires to use movement as a component in her sculptures. In 1957, she started the group Artistas No Figurativos de la Argentina alongside Gregorio Vardanega.
In 1959 she moved to Paris and a year later she took part in the I Biennale de Paris where her career as a kinetic artist took off, her work was centered on the concepts of movement, light and color.
After Boto moved to Paris, Denise René promoted her work. Boto began to incorporate more industrial materials, such as electric motors, into her sculptures at this time.
She was known for her "investigations led on the principle of repetition in the world of reflection". Boto looked for an art capable of awakening different emotions, psychological reactions of joy and tension, an art that could become a medicine for the spirit.

Representative Artworks