Conceived in 1947 as the logo of the Arte Madí group, this photomontage was devised by two masters of the Argentinian avant-garde, Gyula Kosice and Grete Stern. At that time, most of the members of the group had been exhibiting together for two years. The first show put on by the group, then called Arte Concreto Invención, was held at the home of Enrique Pichón Rivière, a Swiss-born psychologist from a French family; the second show took place at Grete Stern and Horacio Coppola’s house. One year later, Kosice left the Arte Concreto Invención group and, together with the Uruguayans Rhod Rothfuss and Carmelo Arden Quin, founded Arte Madí, a major avant-garde movement in Argentina, whose manifesto was read to the public at Galería Van Riel in 1946. Kosice asked the German photographer Grete Stern to help him with the design of the logo for Arte Madí. In the image, against a cityscape background with the obelisk, the city's emblem, in the centre, Stern spelled out the artistic group's name by adding three-dimensional letters (A+D+I) next to the M (taken from the advertisement). In his memoirs, Kosice describes the process and photomontage:
“On [the intersection of] Avenida 9 de Julio and [Avenida ]Corrientes there was a huge illuminated sign advertising Movado watches. It consisted of large vertical letters outlined by lines of neon tubes. Grete and I managed to climb up to the terrace of the building to which the sign was attached and photograph the large initial M against the background of the obelisk. Then we made a photomontage in which we added the three remaining letters in a smaller size. In this way the word Madí with a capital M was formed against the unmistakably porteño background of the obelisk, as if testifying to the Río de la Plata affiliation of the movement we were developing.
The initial idea had been to photograph the advertising poster at night to take advantage of the luminosity of the neon tubes, but Grete did not have the appropriate photographic technology at the time.
Nevertheless, the linear dance of the thin neon tubes remained in me as a powerful resonance. That same year it occurred to me to use them as material for a linear sculpture. At that time, I was making linear sculptures with articulated metal strips, so why not use a material that could carry light by itself and incorporate the magic of light into the work?
This is how the first neon gas sculptures were born. It was the first time in the art scene that this material was used for a work, so I can't fail to stress the importance that this event had (and has) for me.” (Kosice 2010)
Indeed, from 1946, Gyula Kosice was creating vanguardist works. He was a pioneer in using water and neon gas in artistic works. His concrete and non-figurative art count with hydraulic, kinetic and luminal sculptures.