Del infinito al bife (2019)

Title: Del infinito al bife / Publisher: Caja Negra /City: Buenos Aires / Year: 2019

Federico Manuel Peralta Ramos was born blond and with light blue eyes, played polo, acted in movies and TV, worked in radio and graphics, was almost an architect, painted, made sculpture, performance, happening and exhibited himself as a work of art, founded the gánica religion, refounded a city (Mal de Plata!), organized the last supper, was diagnosed as “psychodifferent”, sold a mailbox, inaugurated an exhibition in an empty room, wanted to exhibit a bull, duchamply exhibited paintings and other people’s objects, composed songs, recorded an album, unintentionally changed the rules of the Guggenheim grant, received a salary “as a son”, gave away money, died young and wrote a book titled Del infinito al bife in which he would write poems, boutades and favorite dishes.

“I am an implausible and unspeakable being,” said one of Argentina’s most disconcerting conceptual artists about himself. Descended on both sides from patrician families, Peralta Ramos (1939-1992) developed, without moving from Buenos Aires, an unclassifiable work that was a precursor of many hegemonic procedures of contemporary art. He was, before Marina Abramović, a permanent performance.

In this sort of choral biography accompanied by a curious repertoire of images, Esteban Feune de Colombi replicates the voices of more than 150 eclectic interviewees, from artist Marta Minujín, filmmaker Alejandro Agresti, writer Rodrigo Fresán and vedette Moria Casán to many of Peralta Ramos’ family members and friends from his youth. In the montage of this conversation that traverses his life and work -like two sides of the same coin- young artists, critics and collectors also participate, whose testimonies evoke the mythical anecdotes of the character and at the same time allow us to critically assess the relevance of his work.