A unique version of Edgardo Antonio Vigo's 1972 postcard published by Centro de Arte y Comunicación. This photo-lithographic postcard, originally titled Armas Para Mate Cos(c)ido / Arms for Mate-Tea, has been altered with the addition of printed collage elements as well as stenciled ink and paint. Mailed to the Stamp Art (Gallery) in San Francisco which was a project of mail artists Bill Gaglione and John Held, Jr.
Edgardo Antonio Vigo enrolled in the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes of La Plata in 1950, where he studied drawing. Upon graduation, Vigo travelled to Europe where he came in contact with the international avant-garde for the first time thanks to Venezuelan artist Jesùs-Rafael Soto. Following Vigo’s return to Argentina, neither his early sculptures nor his ‘useless machines’ fell into favour with the public or local critics. As an employee of La Plata’s Ministry of Justice, Vigo developed his practice outside the established circuits of artistic production and presentation. Often with an explicitly political approach, and no lack of humour or irony, Vigo quietly revolutionised the way in which artists spread their work and message in Latin America. It was only in 1991, when collector Jeorge Helft organised Vigo’s first exhibition in a public institution at Fundaciòn San Telmo, Buenos Aires, that his work began to receive attention. His inclusion in Argentina’s Pavilion for the 1994 São Paulo Biennial finally cemented his position in the whirling topographies of Latin American conceptual art.
