Articulation between art and life: a political reading of the conceptualization of the design of Tomás Maldonado (1948‒1954)

Abstract

The work proposes a political approach of the emergence of design in Argentina, focused on the figure of Tomás Maldonado. The periodization (1948‒1954) begins with his expulsion from the Argentine Communist Party and addresses a turning point in his activity and thought, which leads him to share his interest in painting with design and architecture. Part of the historiography interprets this inflection as a sign of Maldonado's disenchantment with political commitment and social change, constructing an idea of design as apolitical. We support the hypothesis that, although far from partisanship, Maldonado’s reflections aim to sustain a program of articulation between art and life through design. In this sense, the objective is to propose a more comprehensive look at design that brings together aesthetic experimentations and ideological positions as intrinsic components of an indivisible whole. For this, it is productive to think of design as a neo‒avant‒garde, a term that, without attempting to classify this experience, allows valuable contributions from different art theorists to be introduced, while avoiding falling into certain canonical narratives with a depoliticizing tendency that led to minimize or exclude this dimension from their production.