Gyula Kosice (; 26 April 1924 – 25 May 2016), born as Ferdinand Fallik, was a Czechoslovakian-born and naturalized Argentine sculptor, plastic artist, theorist, and poet. He played a pivotal role in defining the concrete and non-figurative art movements in Argentina and was one of the precursors of kinetic, luminal, and hyrdokinetic avant-garde art. His work was revolutionary in that it used, for the first time in international art scene, water and neon gas as part of the artwork.
He created monumental sculptures, hydrospatial walks, hydrowalls, etc. Kosice is also known for his involvement in founding the Association Arte Concreteo – Invacion (AACI) and Grupo Madí. He made more than 40 personal and 500 collective exhibitions all over the world.
Personal life
Ferdinand Fallik, who later adopted the stage name Gyula Kosice as a tribute to his hometown, was born into an ethnic Hungarian family in Košice, Czechoslovakia on 26 April 1924. He lived there with his parents and two brothers until he was 4 years, at which time his family emigrated to Argentina aboard the Royal Mail Lines (RMS) Alcanatara steamship in 1928.
In 1932, at the age of 8, Kosice was orphaned and he and his two brothers were taken in by an immigrant companion of his father. As a child and a young adult, Kosice was an avid reader and frequently visited popular libraries where he discovered the inventions of Leonardo da Vinci. He also began to write poetry, which he continued doing for the rest of his life.
Kosice’s artistic career began in the 1940s as he started to collaborate and work alongside other ambitious artists who shared similar ideas about what art should be. He was involved in the formation of Asociación Arte Concreto-Invención (AACI) and Grupo Madí. For the remainder of his life, he remained a prominent figure in Arte Madí, continuing to contribute to magazine publications. He continued to create Madí paintings and sculptures, experimenting with new materials including stainless steel, aluminum, bronze, and plexiglass. One of his most notable works, Hydrospatial City, was created to propose an antigravity solution to Earth’s large and growing human population and is the subject of many of his publications. Kosice continued to participate in exhibitions and in the creation of monumental works all around the world.
In 1945, he met his wife and life-long companion Diyi Laãn. Laãn also was an artist and poet of the Arte Madí group but later gave up her own career to support Kosice and his artistic career
In 2005, he turned is workshop in Buenos Aires into a museum.
Kosice died in Buenos Aires, Argentina on 25 May 2016.
Early career – 1940s
In the early 1940s, Kosice started his first non-figurative drawings, paintings, and sculptures. He was inspired by Leonardo da Vinici’s to use science and invention to think to the future rather than focusing only on the present. He also wrote texts and poems about interdisciplinary art at this time.
Gyula Kosice's art career really started in 1944. In the early 1940s Kosice started going to the Buenos Aires cafes where he met other poets and art enthusiasts. He debated poetry with Alberto Hidalgo and was introduced to Constructivism, the Bauhaus style, and European avant-garde art. It was there that he met the other concrete artists with whom he would later publish the Arturo magazine and form the AACI. The focus in his early art career was about concrete, nonobjective art and how it could radically change society for the better. He worked alongside many other Argentinian artists who all shared the same idea that art should reference only itself and should only be made for its own sake. In 1944, he published the journal Arturo with Carmelo Arden Quin, Rhod Rothfuss, Joaquín Torres-García, Tomás Maldonado, and Lidy Prati. The journal had poems, artworks, and articles containing the artists' responses to constructivist art. That same year, he went with this group of artists to host Art concret invention and El movimiento de arte concreto-invención, a couple of private exhibitions on constructivist art in private homes. One of these private exhibitions was in the home of photographer Grete Stern.