Oscar Abelardo Masotta (8 January 1930 – 13 September 1979) was an Argentine essayist, artist, teacher, semiotician, art critic, and psychoanalyst.
Together, with a group linked to the Center of Philosophy Students, Masotta began writing for the left-wing magazine, Contoro.
Masotta formed a trio of critics and essayists consisting of himself, Juan José Sebreli, and Carlos Correas.
[2] In mid-1955 Masotta collaborated on two pieces for "Working Class" (Spanish: Clase Obrero), a branch of the Workers' Communist Movement that was funded and directed by Rodolfo Puiggrós.
Enrique Pichon-Rivière invited Masotta to a discussion at a conference titled "Jacques Lacan or the Inconsistency in Philosophy" at the Institute of Social Psychology on 12 March 1964.
[5] That same year, the Ediciones Paidós published Masotta's "Comics in the Modern World" (Spanish: La historieta en el mundo moderno).
These were recorded and published in the fourth issue of Sigmund Freud Notebooks, titled "Oedipus, Castration, and Perversion" (Spanish: Edipo, castración y perversión).
In 1974 Masotta founded the Freudian School of Buenos Aires with Gerardo Maeso, Sara Glasman, Javier Aramburu, Samuel Basz, Adolfo Berenstein, Jorge Chamorro, Juan Carlos Cosentino, Benjamín Domb, Norberto Ferreyra, Ricardo Nepomiachi, Luis Peyceré, Norberto Rabinovich, Evarsito Ramos, Oscar Sawicke, Isidoro Vegh, David Yemal, Hugo Levin, and Germán García.
The pressure on the democratically elected Argentinian government of 1973 had steadily increased following the death of President Juan Perón, and the power struggle between armed leftist and rightist factions generated an environment of hostility.
As a result of the country's new governance, Masotta fled to London, where he taught at the Arbous Association and at Henderson Hospital in Surrey.
Faced with legal issues and political infighting by members such as Oscar del Barco at the beginning of 1979, the Freudian School of Buenos Aires saw conflict over who would assume leadership in Masotta's forced absence.