Dalila Puzzovio
Dalila Puzzovio ( born 1 January 1943) is an Argentine visual artist and fashion designer active during the 1960s. Puzzovio works in the art forms of pop, happening, and conceptual art. Her artistic creativity is credited by Graciela Melgarejo as having paved the way for subsequent Argentine artists and greatly influenced the work they produced. Biography With the encouragement of her parents, Puzzovio's career was able to develop at the early age of 12. Although there is no documentation of formal education, her artistic vocation developed under the mentorship of two artists: surrealist Juan Batlle Planas and conceptual artist Jaime Davidovich. She studied under their wing up until 1961, when she exhibited her paintings for the first time in Galeria Lirolay in her hometown of Buenos Aires. Two years later, she showcased her second exhibition, Cascaras, which she developed and French artist Germaine Derbecq curated. In 1964, she was in a selected group of around 30 artists to participate in the New Art of Argentina, or "New Art of Argentina", held by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis in conjunction with the Instituto Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires. Like many pop artists of the time, such as Delia Cancela and Eduardo Costa, Puzzovio blended her interest in art with fashion. Her work in this category led to the creation of Dalila Doble Plataforma (Dalila Double Platform). Until 1985, she focused on developing herself as a fashion designer by making costumes for film and theater and working directly in the fashion industry. Since the 1980s, Puzzovio has experimented with an array of artistic categories. During the 1980s and 1990s, her artistic advice was used to create several interior and architectural designs. Until the beginning of the 1990s, she also contributed to popular magazines such as Vogue, where she completed tasks as a writer, editor, and illustrator. From 1998 to present day, her artwork primarily consists of digital photographic collages, among the most notable is her work Hibridos (Hybrids). She currently works and resides in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Artworks Collaborative works In 1963, she worked alongside Germaine Derbecq to create her second exhibition Cascaras (Shells). These "cascaras astrales", or astral shells, resembled empty bodies and were made of discarded orthopedic casts and other objects. According to the artist, these sculptures held the vibrations of the body it once held. Continuing with the use of casts as her primary medium, Puzzovio created Coronas para los habitantes no humanos from 1964 to 1998. This work, as described by Eduardo Squirru is illustrative of mortality and death; the color white representing the frailty of the human bone and the black representing the soul's darkness. In the 1960s, there was a surge of pop artists in Argentina, among them Puzzovio, Edgardo Gimenez, and Puzzovios' husband Carlos "Charlie" Squirru, whom she had met in 1962. During 1965, this artistic trio worked together on the design for a poster panel located on the corner of Viamonte and Florida Streets in Buenos Aires that read "¿Por qué son