Grupo Forum

Argentine Association of Photographers, founded in 1954, which was a response to the essential initiative of Sameer Makarius (1924-2009), an Egyptian-born photographer and painter who settled in the country. Makarius, along with Max Jacoby, another exile, spearheaded the creation of the Group Forum at a time when Argentina, as a host to artists and open to trends and artistic languages, was experiencing an extraordinary artistic activity. The members of the Group Forum throughout its existence from 1956 to 1960 were Sameer Makarius, Max Jacoby, Pinélides A. Fusco, José Costa, Julio Maubecin, Juan Enrique Bechis, Rodolfo A. Ostermann, Humberto Rivas, and Lisl Steiner. This list of artists shared the principles of subjective photography that Otto Steinert had advocated in the early 1950s, aiming to establish the artistic status of the medium and the photographer while surpassing the dependence on photojournalism and documentary photography.