[2] Before Arden Quin moved to Buenos Aires during the late 1930s, he lived primarily in Montevideo, Uruguay, and also spent some time in Brazil.

[2] In early 1935, a friend of Arden Quin invited him to a lecture at the Theosophical Society of Montevideo by Joaquín Torres-García, an esteemed and exceedingly well-traveled artist and the founder of the Universalismo movement, otherwise known as Universal Constructivism.

While working in a pencil factory in 1940, Arden Quin would meet a young Hungarian immigrant named Fernando Fallik, who would later be known to the art world as Gyula Kosice.

Always eager for adventure and the prospect of "money-making schemes", Arden Quin boarded a steamboat, and found himself in Asunción, Paraguay, three days later.

[2] These works, heavily influenced by his trip up the river, and by a visit to the Natural Sciences Museum in Argentina, feature black oil "mask" shapes on cardboard with a single "eye" in each.

By the end of his visit, painter Maria Elena Vieira da Silva and poet Murilo Mendes provided contributions for the journal.

Back in his home country, Arden Quin gathered a drawing, an essay, and two long poems from his friend Torres-García.

[2] The journal would ultimately provide a foundation for an entire generation of Latin American artists in the Rio de Plata area.

In 1946, before moving to Paris, Quin in collaboration with other artist and friends Martín Blaszko, Rhod Rothfuss, and Gyula Kosice, launched the Madí movement.

[4] The movement's main characteristics are: irregular frames, movable and displacing architecture, pan interval music composition and invented poetic propositions.

[5] On August 3, 1946, Arden Quin read his Madí manifesto to a group of critics, journalists, and others in his milieu at the French Institute for Higher Learning in Buenos Aires.

Here Arden Quin would debut many new creations, including a set of mobiles titled "Escultura Movil Suspendida" ("Suspended Mobile Sculpture"), a transformable wooden sculpture "Escultura Amvobile", and about half a dozen "formes galbées" pieces collectively titled "Cosmopolis", which vaguely depict aerial views of urban settings.

In 1995, Arden Quin underscored that its lack of broad recognition has actually been the secret to its longevity and ideological consistency: "Having never been taken over by the media, MADI has been able to travel through time in total independence.

"[7] Today, Madí is represented by artists from several countries, including France, Hungary, Uruguay, Spain, Japan, Brazil and Venezuela.

The permanent collection includes twenty-five of Arden Quin's works as well as pieces from eighteen other Madí artists spanning four continents.

[2] Many artists have been members of this international artistic movement since the 1940s until today, including Rhod Rothfuss, Juan Bay, Esteban Eitler, Diyi Laañ, Valdo Wellington, Rodolfo Uricchio, Gyula Kosice, Nelly Esquivel, J. P. Delmonte, Maria Bresler, Abraham Linenberg, Éva Bányász,[8] Salvador Presta, Eduardo Sabelli, Nair Oliveira, Ana Maria Bay, Muñoz Cota, Jorge Rivera, Ricardo Humbert, Alberto Scopelliti, Lisl Steiner, Aldo Prior, Isa Muchnik, Ricardo Pereyra, Alberto Hidalgo, Grete Stern, Juan Carlos Paz, and Ramon Melgar.

At the age of 21, he met his mentor, the Uruguayan sculptor Joaquín Torres García who was directly influenced by Piet Mondrian and Michael Seufor.

[10] In 1948, after his partner Sofía Kunst became pregnant, Arden Quin painted for her what his biographer and friend Shelley Goodman would claim is "arguably the most beautiful and certainly the most poignant work of his entire career.