“Since I visited him in Paris, my desire to organize an exhibition of his works in the museum has grown stronger. As I was able to tell him then, I think it is excellent,” he wrote. Jorge Romero Brest (1905-1989), then director of the National Museum of Fine Arts, to the Argentine-Italian artist Marino di Teana (1920-2012) in December 1962. “I burn with longing to see the execution,” he told her in another letter in 1963, asking for plans for a sculpture to be installed in the museum garden. However, the project was stopped because the type of steel the artist needed was not available.
62 years later, this wish has finally come true – albeit with different pieces. Since last week, thanks to the encouragement of Gustavo Pecoroff Marino, Di Taena’s nephew, Two monumental sculptures by this artist decorate the museum’s gardens. They were made in Buenos Aires by DAMTSA, Dante Tisi’s construction company, according to the author’s original plans and will remain on display until September next year. It is a symbolic return, as Di Taena has not shown his works in Argentina since his departure from the country in 1952. This return allows us to return to his work and his story.
Homage to Lao Tzu (1972-2025) is a six meter high and three meter wide orange structure made of Corten steel that looks like a monolith or a small building. It is placed at the entrance of the Association of Friends of the National Museum of Fine Arts. It is divided into four vertical axes, separated by an empty space in the middle, and four more horizontal axes that form a base that appears to wobble from side to side, giving the impression of a balanced pendulum motion. “The Tao is the path; and the path is always changing. The sculpture shows the permanent movement that represents the beginning of life. They are abstract ideas expressed in an abstract way,” María José Herrera, curator of this exhibition, tells LA NACION.
The other work, Aube (1977–2018), meaning Dawn, is located in Plaza Rubén Darío, at the corner of Avenida Presidente Figueroa Alcorta and Avenida Pueyrredón. It is also made of Corten steel and offers another perception game. It is a large circle composed of two semicircles separated by a vertical axis, creating a central cavity. Only by looking at the sculpture from a certain point can it be considered complete. From any other angle, the circle splits, the shape unfolds and you can see a semicircle at the front and another at the back; one higher and one lower. “Change is permanent,” says Herrera. “Symmetry is something to be achieved, it is not something given.” “The middle is just as important as the two parts. If this space were not in the middle, the two parts would not be; it would be a complete circle. Here it is shown that this empty space is just as important as the two figures that are on the side,” adds Pecoroff Marino in dialogue with LA NACION.
Francesco Cayetano Marino, known by the stage name Marino di Teana, was born on August 8, 1920 in Teana, a small town in southern Italy, and emigrated to Argentina at the age of 16 for his father’s work. A few days after his arrival, he began working as a bricklayer in the engineer Migone’s factory. He studied at night, attended the Círculo de Bellas Artes and attended the Ernesto de la Cárcova Higher School of Fine Arts, graduating at the age of thirty with the title of senior professor. In Argentina he was nationalized and received several awards; including first prize from the National Hall of Plastic Arts in 1951.
In 1952, Di Taena returned to Europe and, after a short stay in Galicia, settled permanently in France, where he joined the community of Argentine and Latin American artists including Luis Tomasello, Julio Le Parc, Gyulia Kosice, Emilio Pettoruti, Aurelio Macchi, Nicolás García Uriburu, Carlos Cruz Diez and many others. She was represented by Denise René, an important gallery owner of the time and a key figure in abstraction. “Italy gave him life, Argentina gave him knowledge and France the opportunity to develop his art,” says Pecoroff in an interview with LA NACION.
Empty space occupies a fundamental place throughout the artist’s work. “He puts into practice the principle of modern sculpture, namely that voids have as much value as masses. He says that every mass has its corresponding negative form. He shows the mass, but it means empty space,” Herrera continues.
According to this logic, the space that separates two bodies is considered a separate entity. According to the artist’s triunitarian theory, the sum of these two bodies is therefore not two, but three. “I do not believe that what we call emptiness is nothing. It is a dense, invisible and unknown energy, similar to an ocean (…), wrote the artist in one of his texts in the book Marino di Teana. Monograph (Loft Éditions).
“If the universe is beautiful, it is thanks to the relationship between volume and space, at all levels,” said the artist in a 1982 interview with The present.
Over time, Di Taena became one of the key names in architectural sculpture, installing more than 45 monumental works in cities in France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland. His works with a brutalist influence are part of important collections such as the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, the Center Pompidou and the Center FRAC. He was awarded the Equestrian Order of Arts and Letters and received awards from the Academy of Architecture and the Institut de France, as well as recognition in Italy. In 1982 he represented Argentina at the Venice Biennale and received the Konex Award for Fine Arts. Di Teana died a few months before her 92nd birthday on January 1, 2012 in Périgny sur Yerres.
He was an attentive, sensitive man with an unbreakable character, as his son Nicolás describes in a text in the book Marino di Teana. monograph (Loft Editions). “A person who was present at every moment. When he made pasta, he made pasta and nothing else. He stayed in front of the water for twelve minutes. He was a humanist who always cared about humanity. Chatting with him was like being transported to a film with all the historical figures with whom he lived, from Parmenides to Frederick II of Hohenstaufen,” concludes his nephew Gustavo, representative of the Marino studio with Nicolás and promoter of this new proposal at Fine Arts.
Homage to Lao Tzu (1972–2025) is already installed in the entrance to the Association of Friends of the National Museum of Fine Arts; And Aube (1977–2018) is located in Plaza Rubén Darío, on the corner of Avenida Presidente Figueroa Alcorta and Avenida Pueyrredón. The exhibition will officially open on December 12th and the sculptures will be on view until September 2026.