argentina republicconcept:movement nueva figuracion argentina
Juanito Laguna aprende a leer (Juanito Laguna Learns to Read)
Mixed-media collage painting by Antonio Berni, 1961. Part of Berni's 'Juanito Laguna' series depicting a fictional child from the villas miseria (shantytowns) of Buenos Aires. The series uses discarded industrial materials — tin cans, rags, wire, corrugated metal — as collage elements, embedding the social reality of poverty into the formal structure of the work itself. Berni's grand prize at the 1962 Venice Biennale brought international recognition to the series.
Scholarly Significance
Berni's Juanito Laguna — canonical Argentine New Figuration work; collage assemblage social critique.
Notes
- ·Antonio Berni won the Grand International Prize for Engraving at the 31st Venice Biennale (1962) for his Juanito Laguna prints.
- ·The series comprises paintings, prints, and assemblages — Juanito is a composite fictional everyman of Buenos Aires shantytown poverty.
- ·The use of industrial waste as collage materials was a formal commitment: the social subject determines the medium.
- ·A companion series, 'Ramona Montiel', depicts a young woman's trajectory from the slums into sex work.