Oscar Bony

Oscar Rubén Bony (1941–2002) was an Argentine avant-garde artist known for his innovative and daring work. Bony was a very active artist who exhibited his work often. He wanted his work to make a huge statement, by having the public experience the events occurring in Argentina's culture while capturing innocence, guilty, and the people being trapped. He wanted his people to open their eyes to the injustice that was happening to the people and how life was for the less fortunate.

Biography Early life Born on June 10, 1941, in the city of Posadas, in the northern province of Misiones. His mother was Emma Martinez, a Paraguayan who worked as a teacher; and his father was Luciano Roman Bony, an Argentine, who worked as a wrangler and saddle maker.

Training Bony graduated from Colegio de Posadas with an undergraduate degree and began his artistic training with Lucas Braulio Areco. At the age of 17, Oscar Bony began studying painting with a local professor. In 1959, he received a grant to travel to Buenos Aires to study at the Escuela Preparatoria de Bellas Artes. As he continued with his career, he held many important public positions for many years revolving around art.

From 1959 to 1963, Bony took classes at the Demetrio Urruchua and Juan Carlos Castagnino's studios. Oscar worked as an assistant for Antonio Berni He focused on imagery, and this phase of his life revealed a certain expression of realism, which then moved him towards the new figuration movement. For his early art, he proclaimed himself to be self-taught but later in life, he stopped working with art and began practicing photography.

Death Oscar Bony died in 2002 when he was 61 years of age. Despite his late work on the topic of suicide, he did not commit suicide himself, as most people would think, but rather died of an intestinal disease that was not yet fully diagnosed.

1955 - 1st student prize for office of culture of the province of Missiones, Posadas.

1958 - 1st prize in Semana Del Mar

1958 - 1st prize in Amigos del Arte

1962 - 1st prize in Salon de Artes Plasticas de Missiones.

1963 - honorable mention in Salon de Rosario a

1963 - honorable mention in Salon de Artes Del Mar del Plata

1963 - Salon annual Museo Provincio de Bellas Artes Rosa Galisteo de Rodriguez.

1965 - honorary prize in Premio de Honor ver estimar

1976 - 1st prize in Marcelo de Ridder Prize

1976 - Banco del Acuerdo Prize

1996 - Artist of the Year Bony's work was the subject of a retrospective, "Oscar Bony: el Mago," at the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires from November 2007 to February 2008. It was a controversial installation that consisted of an actual working-class family seated on a pedestal for eight hours. Bony used and paid a working-class family to sit in the gallery while recorded sounds of their everyday life played in the background. First executed for the influential exhibition Experiencias '68 at the Instituto Torcuato Di Tella, the work was recreated in a 2004 exhibit at the Houston Museum of Modern Art. This work comprises 60 square meters of chain-link fence on the floor of the gallery with film projector screening a detail of the fencing. The visitors were encouraged to walk on the fencing to fully engaged with the experience of being held captive. The spectators' experience walking on this surface is contrasted with the projected image.

Fue, no Fue, Nunca Los Sabremos (It was him, It was not him, We will never know), 1998. This artwork fell under the series of photographs that he did titled Suicidios (Suicide). This depicts the death of the subject-author. The images do not only evoke or allude to violence that cannot be seen, but also draw to real violence that is in the making. In this series Oscar exposes violence, while leaving the work riddled with bullets. The words "fue, no fue" are written on a piece of paper held by a masked subject. These words are used as way to describe the innocence or guilt of the person.

Additional Artwork - Sin Titulo, 1986 (Herlitzaka + Faria)

- Pan American Art project

- Kriminal, 1998. This is a photograph of a man shot dead on a staircase behind glass shot with a 9-millimeter pistol. With this photograph Oscar Bony is alluding to the idea of death and violence.

- La Ley Divina No tiene Porgue ser Justa (The Divine law doesn't have to be fair), 1998

- Los Cielos (The Skies) 1975