Martha Boto (Buenos Aires, Argentina 1925-2004 Paris, France)

She studied drawing and painting at the National Academy of Fine Arts, but is internationally recognized as one of the pioneers of kinetic art. In 1955 she joined the Arte Nuevo Association, and in 1956 the group Artistas No Figurativos Argentinos. Having settled in Paris since the end of that decade, she began to explore movement by making mobiles with plexiglass. Her interest in the light absorption and reflection capacity offered by different industrial materials led to several series of her works, all known by more than one title. Generic, descriptive and serial, the way Boto named her pieces works as an indicator of the degree of experimentation with which the artist worked. The use of acrylic, plexiglass and steel associates Boto’s work (like that of other kinetic artists) with the industrial design in vogue in the 60s. Projected on a wall or in a box, its dynamic and playful forms are related, for on the other hand, with the psychedelic spirit characteristic of those years.