"PAINTING PAINT ITSELF” R.P
Roberto Platé, born 1940 in Buenos Aires, stands among legendary Argentine artists whose journeys span across the globe during a time of artistic vibrancy and effervescence.
In 1957, Plate discovered a passion for steel techniques after a training as fitter and industrial designer. Although, his grandfather’s adeptness in drawing left an impression leading to an interest to deepen his artist skills. To cultivate his interest in art, he decides to enroll at a school in his father’s homeland, the Munich School of Fine Arts, München Bildenden Künste, in Germany. It is there that he encounters the influential Bauhaus movement, which profoundly shapes his approach to art.
Between 1966 and 1968, upon return to Buenos Aires, Roberto Plate becomes an active participant in the pivotal cultural center, Di Tella Institute, an institute frequently compared to that of New York’s ‘Factory’. This era is a defining period in the Argentine art scene as it fostered artistic creation among prominent artists such as Martha Minujín, León Ferrari, and Julio Parc.
As the shadow of dictatorship looms, Platé co-founds Group TSE (Theatre Without Explanation) alongside Alfredo Arias and other avant-garde artists. Theatre - specifically scenography - becomes his medium for creating “scenic canvases”*.
In May 1968, his installation “Los Baños” (The Toilets) is unveiled at a group exhibition, serving as a manifesto against the putschit regime of Juan Carlos Onganía. The scandal that ensues leads to the closure of the Di Tella Institute.
In 1969, Platé and members of the TSE Group immerse themselves in the New York Pop Art scene. Engaging with artists such as James Rosenquist, Claes Oldenburg, Marisol Escobar, Les Levin, Andy Warhol, and the multifaceted James Lee Byars, known for his work in both Minimalism and Conceptual Art. They are hosted by the ‘Inter-American Relations Center,’ funded by the Rockefeller Foundation.
After an influential time in New York, Platé and the TSE Group arrive in Paris. Platé’s early scenographic work is marked by the audacious and provocative ‘Eva Perón’ in 1970, written by his comrade Raúl Damonte Botana, known as Copi. Featuring transvestite performers, the play initially provokes scandal but quickly achieves great acclaim, propelling its creators to the forefront of the theatrical world.
Through happenings and installations, these emerging talents inspired significant cultural shifts by challenging norms and introduced new forms of art to the stage. Plate alongside members of TSE presented groundbreaking work that revolutionized art and European theatrical traditions.
Platé refines his stagecraft through the lens of minimalism, making the invisible visible and stripping settings to their essence while expanding the architectural boundaries, forging vast, thought-provoking landscapes. This approach offers a fresh dialogue of the traditionally ornate and complex forms of classical theater. His profound career is enriched by his ventures into painting and conceptual art, where he frequently employs “trompe l’oeil” (“deceive the eye”) to infuse philosophical depth in his installations*. By the mid-1970s, Platé encounters a Parisian Sufi group and while the philosophy and spiritual depth resonate with him, he does not engage in proselytism. Nonetheless, those familiar with Sufi principles can discern subtle influence and graphic references in his artwork. For Roberto Platé, art is omnipresent, borderless, an integral part of his life. His painting style can be integrated into his stage designs in breathtaking fashion, as in P. Constant’s “I Masnadieri” (1980), D. Bagouet’s “Fantasia Semplice” (1986), P. Constant’s “Werther” (1988)...
In theatre and opera, he collaborated with leading authors, musicians and directors, at the most prestigious venues across Europe, the United States, and Latin America, contributing to over 110 productions as a set designer.
The artist’s and painter’s gaze is omnipresent, focused within a very strict and essential framework. He delineates the edges of the canvas, determines the composition, and manipulates space to create various planes. Roberto Platé is a man of the stage who remains elusive, particularly with his paintings, which he seldom shows. He cultivates secrecy and for many years decides to allow only a select few privileged collectors into his studio. It is not until 1977, through the efforts of the Marais Cultural Center, that he is persuaded to step out of his ‘cave’—a term Platé himself uses—for a solo exhibition. The following year, he expands his public engagement with a group exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris. Yet, he is not closed off to extraordinary encounters, in 1980 he connects with Marguerite Duras and he does not hesitate to embrace challenges with those who draw his interest. Gradually, he agrees to collaborate with select gallery owners, such as Lucie Weil Seligmann, and later, Galerie Isy Brachot showcases his paintings at the FIAC in the Grand Palais. In 1987, he meets Jean-René de Fleurieu, with whom he proposes to utilize an extraordinary urban wasteland at the famous Quais de la Gare, leading to a series of installations and exhibitions there in 1990, 1994, and 1996.
In his studio, where he has been working since 1982 at Télégraphe in the 19th Arrondissement of Paris, Roberto Platé fully embraces his identity as an artist: working with large and sometimes even monumental formats. He paints using broad, fluid brush strokes, vibrant colors typically lightened with white, creating an effect of depth and ambiguity. This effect is something he seeks in his scale changes, a technique derived from his scenography work. For instance, at the Gal- erie des Beaux-Arts de Paris in 1988, he installed a Leporello of 30 canvases each measuring 3 meters by 2, which spanned the entire length of the venue. During his many travels, or in the music of his studio, Platé escapes to other techniques such as draw- ing, watercolor and engraving. His works shrink in size, offering us intimate notebooks of memories. A man of few words, the artist’s languages are multiple. In New York, Platé was profoundly influenced by his interactions with key figures of the Pop Art movement, adopting their use of vivid colors while frequently reverting to minimalist art. In his works, geometry subtly manifests in various forms, creating unexpected perspectives in the interpretation of the human body—a limb, a face—and transforming his palette into a landscape, complete with its reliefs and plains.
He adopts the thought from Blaise Pascal: on the infinitely large and the infinitely small. Roberto Platé undertakes to portrait of his studio. Painting the paint itself becomes a significant endeavor. He also paints his tools, his brushes, his easel, staging himself in his paintings with theatrical codes. Colors crush onto the palette in abstract shapes sculpted by light. Each painting represents a color, and each color a symbol—a ‘paint-object’.
Throughout his career, starting in 1967, themes freely evolved following his inspiration. After an extensive period focused on performances and installations, he devoted himself to studio portraits and self-portraits (1980-1987), followed by a phase of minimalism (1988-1991), the cycle of forms (1995-2008), and painting the paint itself (2010-2020). However, echoes of the past resonate through these periods, especially with recurring elements like mirrors and mise en abyme, which have become a signature in his work. In 1981, after 13 years in exile, he was warmly welcomed, recognized, and celebrated in his native country through multiple exhibitions. His name now appears prominently in the history of Argen- tine art. In 1997, an exhibition at the Recoleta, supported by the Ministry of Culture, highlighted his contributions. He received the A.C.E. Award for the best lyrical production in 2001 for his triple role as director, scenographer, and costume designer for ‘Joan at the Stake’ by Arthur Honegger at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires. He was knighted by Jack Lang as a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters in the 1980s. In 2016, the Buenos Aires Museum of Fine Arts organized a tribute exhibition, featuring a hundred of his works, including the renowned piece ‘Los Baños’ (The Toilets).’ He has since 2023, lived retired in Paris.
