ROBERTO PLATÉ
Roberto Platé (Buenos Aires, 1940) is an Argentine artist whose practice spans painting, installation, and scenography. Trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, he was profoundly influenced by the legacy of the Bauhaus before joining the avant-garde movement surrounding the Instituto Di Tella in Buenos Aires. His installation Los Baños (1968), now regarded as a landmark of Argentine art, forced him into exile. After a period in New York, where he encountered the Pop Art scene, he settled in Paris.
Alongside his distinguished career as a scenographer, Platé has developed a singular body of paintings over more than five decades. Working primarily in oil on large-scale canvases, he transforms the artist's studio, palette, tools, and creative gesture into the central subjects of his compositions. Through optical illusion, reinterpretations of the ready-made, and explorations of space, his paintings challenge perception while revealing the deeply spiritual dimension that runs throughout his work.
His work has been exhibited in numerous institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art and the National Museum of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires, which dedicated a major retrospective to him in 2016. His works are held in important public and private collections, notably the CNAP (Centre National des Arts Plastiques) and the National Museum of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires. In 1992, he was named a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France, and in 2001 he received the award for Best Production of the Year at the Teatro Colón.
