{{Short description|Argentine artist}} {{Infobox artist | name = Martha Boto | image = Martha Boto (1995).png | imagesize = | caption = Martha Boto (1995) | birth_name = | birth_date = {{birth date|1925|12|27|mf=y}} | birth_place = Buenos Aires, Argentina | death_date = {{death date and age|2004|10|13|1925|12|27|mf=y}} | death_place = Paris, France | education = Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes | field = Sculpture | training = | movement = Kinetic art | works = | patrons = | awards = | spouse = Gregorio Vardanega }}

'''Martha Boto''' (27 December 1925 &ndash; 13 October 2004) was an Argentine artist.<ref name="Guggenheim">{{cite web|url=http://www.guggenheim-venice.it/inglese/collections/artisti/biografia.php?id_art=25|title=Martha Boto - Peggy Guggenheim Collection}}</ref> Boto was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and was co-founder of the Group of Non-Figurative Artists of Argentina. She is considered to be a pioneer of kinetic and programmed art.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TBtWDAAAQBAJ&dq=Martha%20Boto&pg=PA100|title=New Tendencies: Art at the Threshold of the Information Revolution (1961 - 1978)|last=Medosch|first=Armin|date=10 June 2016|publisher=MIT Press|via=Google Books|isbn=9780262034166}}</ref>

== Life == Coming from a family of artists, where they always supported her in her vocation. She studied drawing and painting at Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes in 1944, and graduated in 1950.<ref name="Sicardi">{{cite web|url=http://www.sicardi.com/artists/martha-boto/artists-artist-works/|title=Martha Boto - Sicardi Gallery}}</ref>

She moved to Paris in 1959 with her husband and collaborator Gregorio Vardanega, where she lived until her death in 2004.<ref name="Guggenheim" />

== Work ==

Boto's earliest work was primarily geometric abstractions.<ref name="Tovar">{{cite web|url=http://www.leontovargallery.com/martha-boto|title=Martha Boto|access-date=2017-03-18|archive-date=2018-11-17|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181117022111/http://www.leontovargallery.com/martha-boto|url-status=dead}}</ref> During the 50s she had her first concerns regarding space, which ended in creations of structures where she made use of plexiglass with colored water. By 1956, she joined the Concrete art group "Arte Nuevo".<ref name="Sicardi" />

She was among the first artists in Buenos Aires to use movement as a component in her sculptures.<ref name="Guggenheim" /> In 1957, she started the group Artistas No Figurativos de la Argentina alongside Gregorio Vardanega.<ref name="Sicardi" />

In 1959 she moved to Paris and a year later she took part in the I Biennale de Paris where her career as a kinetic artist took off, her work was centered on the concepts of movement, light and color.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Real/Virtual : arte cinético argentino en los años sesenta|others=Herrera, María José, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Argentina)|year=2012|isbn=9789871428137|location=[Buenos Aires, Argentina]|oclc=815824078}}</ref>

After Boto moved to Paris, Denise René promoted her work.<ref name="Tovar" /> Boto began to incorporate more industrial materials, such as electric motors, into her sculptures at this time.

She was known for her "investigations led on the principle of repetition in the world of reflection".<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/contemporaryarti00hcen|title=Contemporary artists|date=1989|publisher=St. James Press|others=Naylor, Colin.|isbn=0912289961|edition=3rd|location=Chicago|oclc=20140788|url-access=registration}}</ref> Boto looked for an art capable of awakening different emotions, psychological reactions of joy and tension, an art that could become a medicine for the spirit.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Palabra de artista : textos sobre arte argentino, 1961-1981|date=2010|publisher=Fondo Nacional de las Artes|others=Amigo Cerisola, Roberto., Dolinko, Silvia, 1970-, Rossi, Cristina.|isbn=9789876410106|location=Buenos Aires|oclc=713560782}}</ref>

Boto's work is included in international collections world wide, which includes the collection of the Pérez Art Museum Miami, Florida. Her work is on view to the audience as of 2024.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Martha Boto – MIA Art Collection |url=https://miaartcollection.org/2020/04/27/martha-boto/ |access-date=2024-03-04 |language=en-US}}</ref>

== Representative Artworks ==

* ''Optical Structure'', 1962, plexiglass, 90 x 45 x 45&nbsp;cm.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Argentina en el mundo. Artes visuales 2|publisher=Centro de Artes Visuales del Instituto Torcuato Di Tella|year=1966|location=Buenos Aires}}</ref> * ''Mouvements chromocinétiques'', 1971. MNBA collection, Buenos Aires.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://abierta.cl/cinetica/martha-boto/|title=Latin American Kinetic Art. Martha Boto|date=28 May 2013|website=Arte Cinético Latinoamericano|access-date=17 November 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190423162801/http://abierta.cl/cinetica/martha-boto/|archive-date=23 April 2019|url-status=dead}}</ref>

== Personal exhibitions == * 2004 - ''Moving Parts: Forms of the Kinetic'', Museum Tinguely, Basel, Switzerland; Kunsthaus, Gras, Austria.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|url=http://www.artandartcollection.com/artist/10?lang=esp|title=ART&ART COLLECTION|access-date=12 November 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161113033444/http://www.artandartcollection.com/artist/10?lang=esp|archive-date=13 November 2016|url-status=usurped}}</ref>

== Collective exhibitions == * 1964/65 - Kunsthalle, Museum of Bern, Switzerland.<ref name=":0" /> * 2015 - ''Un Tournant'' - ''A turning point: Antonio Asis, Martha Boto, Horacio García Rossi, Hugo De Marziani, Georgio Vardanega,'' Sicardi Gallery. Houston, Texas, United States.<ref name=":1" /> * 2021 - ''Women in Abstraction'', Centre Pompidou.<ref name="Women in abstraction">{{cite book |title=Women in abstraction |date=2021 |publisher=Thames & Hudson Ltd.; Thames & Hudson Inc |location=London : New York, New York |isbn=978-0500094372 |pages=170}}</ref>

== Bibliography ==

* Herrera, M.J. ''Real Virtual, arte cinético argentino en los años sesenta.'' (pág. 211). 1era edición. Buenos Aires. Amigos del Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (2012). * Rivenc, R. and Reinhard, B. (2016). ''Keep it Moving? Conserving Kinetic Art.'' Los Angeles. Getty Publications.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Keep it moving? : conserving kinetic art : proceedings from the meeting organized by the Getty Conservation Institute, the ICOM-CC Modern Materials and Contemporary Art Working Group, and Museo del Novecento, Palazzo Reale, Milan, Italy, June 30-July 2, 2016|others=Rivenc, Rachel, Bek, Reinhard, Getty Conservation Institute, ICOM Committee for Conservation. Working Group Modern Materials and Contemporary Art, Museo del Novecento (Milan, Italy), Palazzo reale di Milano|isbn=9781606065389|edition= First|location=Los Angeles, California|oclc=994263283|date = 2018-04-10}}</ref>

==References== {{Reflist}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Boto}} Category:2004 deaths Category:1925 births Category:Argentine artists Category:20th-century Argentine women artists Category:21st-century Argentine women artists