Alberto Greco

Alberto Greco (January 15 1931 – October 12 1965) was an Argentine artist who was instrumental in the development of conceptual art in Argentina, Brazil, and Spain.

His best known artwork is a series called Vivo Dito in which Greco draws attention to objects and people as living art pieces within everyday life.

Alberto Greco was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1931.

He was part of a family of five; his older brother, Jorge Julio, was eight years his senior, and his brother Edgardo was younger than him by four years.

His mother was Ana Victoria Disolina Ferraris and his father was Francisco José.

Greco never married and neither did he leave traces of a significant other in his life despite having friends.

This gave him the freedom to do what he wanted without the burden of a partner, allowing him to travel freely.

Alberto Greco was a student of Tomás Maldonado and attended many workshops put on by Cecilia Marcouch.

Greco also attended the School of Fine Arts but dropped out.

Throughout his time as an artist, he also worked and lived with many different artists.

Greco not only influenced others but was also influenced by other artists.

Alberto Greco not only considered himself the greatest informalist of his time, but acted as if he was.

Informalism branched off from expressionism.

Informal art explored possibilities of gestures and materialism that was typically non-traditional, and signage as the basis of communication.

Informalism is creating artwork or signs, then giving them meaning afterwards.

This focused on giving the viewer the freedom to think for themselves and decide what they see.

Greco only desired a handful of things, such as validation, glory, and fame, and tried getting them through a variety of ways.

Due to his eagerness to be famous and his rebellious ways, Greco would often get himself invited into places to later on not show up.

Soon after this period, Greco's name began to be associated with the idea of scandal and imposture.

To this Greco responded, "I am so serious a painter that I have no need to assume the appearance of one."

Alberto Greco was obsessed with the idea of growth and, through that, he believed that the "will to grow was the will to erase prejudice".

Because of Greco's response to people's words and his ways of excluding prejudice, he became a symbol of the liberating angel to the marginalized.

This is one of the reasons many consider him a leader.

Instead of supporting public criticism, often artists would defend his work and his name.

Alberto Greco created an outstanding amount of manifestos and these are just a few of them.

Greco created many different manifestos during his Vito Dito series such as his "Gran Manifiesto-Rollo Arte Vito Dito".

Alberto Greco created a manifesto titled "Grand vito-dito Anti Manifiesto".

Alberto Greco had an interesting relationship with himself.

He often was overwhelmed by his being and through this aspired to break away from his identity.

Greco would often beat himself up over the idea of becoming famous and pushed himself to exceed his own expectations.

Simultaneously, he would glorify himself by hanging posters around cities he frequented, which said things like "Greco how great you are" and "Greco, America's greatest informalist painter."

He often tied himself up with the idea of hope and corruption.

Hope, for it gave him the will to be rebellious, and corruption because it nourished the idea of rebellion.

Despite this, Greco would put himself above the general codes of morality and considered himself a moralist.

Like an unbalanced scale, he would often go from smoking cigarettes on the street to being waited on by maids in odd environments such as parks or gardens.

Greco was also fascinated with quotidian reality; this is the idea of belonging to each day.

With this fascination, Greco began to create the Vivo Dito project.

Vivo Dito means "living finger."

This was a series Greco created in 1962 to emphasize the idea of living in the now.

For this project, Greco would walk around a town and sign objects, people, or animals.