Abstraction in Action is a broad and dynamic platform dedicated to the promotion and research of contemporary abstract art from Latin America since the 1990s seeking to activate the field and foster new perspectives.

Abstraction in Action is an arts initiative that provides context, information and resources in the field through its interactive database of contemporary abstract artists, publications, exhibitions and projects.

About Abstraction in Action

Abstraction in Action is an interactive project born out of research on the contemporary production of abstract art in Latin America. The original aim of the research was to produce an exhibition illustrating the experimental and innovative nature of contemporary abstraction in Latin America.

The body of work discovered was so rich, diverse, and exciting that it required the creation of a broader platform that not only encompassed the show, but also this expansive growing field of contemporary art.

Abstraction in Action attests to the aesthetic and conceptual potential of abstraction as a key language of contemporary art. It also acknowledges the importance and long lasting legacy of abstract art and modernism in Latin America between 1940 and the late 1970s, either in the expansion of the inherited traditions or in the deconstruction of canonical ideas related to these.

Abstraction in Action promotes engagement in a global dialogue about contemporary art and ideas, involving a high level of experimentation in a wide range of media that spans painting, drawing, sculpture, installation art, photography, video art and technology.

Many artists working with abstraction incorporate mass and popular culture both conceptually and aesthetically into their art. For some of these artists, abstraction may not be the only language that they explore, as some work with a figurative vocabulary, incorporate photographic or video images of the world, or even combine both abstract and figurative iconography in one single work.

Abstraction in Action is an ongoing collaborative platform that encompasses this exciting field of contemporary art and seeks to incorporate the multiple voices of artists, curators, writers and researchers in the field.

  • Gregory Attaway Director
  • Cecilia Fajardo-Hill Chief Curator
  • Timothy Long Lead Designer
  • Carlos Garcia Editorial Designer
  • Paulina Velázquez Solís Video Editing & Social Media

Gregory Attaway
Director

Gregory Attaway is the Director of Abstraction in Action and the SPACE Collection in Irvine, California.

Attaway holds a Bachelor of Arts in Art History from California State University, Long Beach. He has been with the SPACE Collection and Abstraction in Action since their inception and has coordinated multiple exhibitons, publications and projects such as Monochrome Undone, Irvine, CA (2015), The Soft Gesture by Ana Belén Cantoni, Santa Ana, CA (2014), Marcolina Dipierro: Interrupted Line, Folsom, CA (2014) and Mariela Scafati: Pinturas done estoy: 1998-2013, Buenos Aires, Argentina (2013).

Cecilia Fajardo-Hill
Chief Curator

Cecilia Fajardo-Hill is a British/Venezuelan art historian and curator of modern and contemporary art, specializing in Latin American art.

Fajardo-Hill holds a PhD in Art History from the University of Essex, England and a MA in 20th century Art History from the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, England. Fajardo-Hill is the Chief Curator of the Space Collection, Irvine, California, and Abstractioninaction.com, and the Guest Curator at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, co-curating with Andrea Giunta The Political Body: Radical Women in Latin American Art 1960-1985, a survey of radical artistic practices by women artists in Latin America and Latina artists, to open in 2017 under the umbrella of the Getty initiative PST LA/LA.

Fajardo-Hill was the Chief Curator at the Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA) in Long Beach, California between 2009 and 2012. She was the Director and Chief Curator of the Cisneros Fontanals Arts Foundation (CIFO), a non-profit organization devoted to the promotion of contemporary art from Latin America; and the Ella Fontanals Cisneros Collection, an international collection of contemporary art, Miami, Florida between 2005 and 2008. She was General Director of Sala Mendoza, an alternative space for contemporary art in Caracas, Venezuela between 1997 and 2001.

Curatorial Advisors

Every country in Latin America has a unique production of abstract art and its own dynamics of exhibitions, publications and research. With the aim of being as comprehensive as possible and include a multiplicity of curatorial voices, Abstraction in Action has invited curators with a special interest and experience working with contemporary abstraction in Latin America, to join the project as Curatorial Advisors.

Oscar Roldán-Alzate

Colombia

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Oscar Roldán-Alzate is a political scientist with an interest in research and cultural analysis, focusing on history, visual studies and art theory.

Roldán-Alzate holds an MFA and a Master of Political Science from the Universidad de Antioquia. Roldán-Alzate has been the chief curator of the Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellín since 2008 and has imparted classes at Universidad de Antioquia since 2003.

Recent curatorial projects include: 43 Salón Nacional de Artistas in Colombia Saber Desconocer, Medellín, 2013; Sociales: Débora Arango llega hoy… which traveled to Museo Nacional, Bogotá, 2012, Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA), Long Beach, CA, 2013; and Mint Museum, Charlotte, 2013; and Bienes Mostrencos, a solo exhibition of artist Carlos Garaicoa at Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellín, 2010.

Carlos E. Palacios

Mexico

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Carlos E. Palacios is a Venezuelan curator and art critic.

Palacios holds an MA in Curatorial Studies from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, New York, and a Masters Diploma of Advanced Studies from the Universitat de Barcelona, Spain, in the Doctoral program in History, Theory and Criticism of the Arts. Palacios obtained a BA in Art History from the Universidad Central de Venezuela.

Palacios was Chief Curator at the Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil in Mexico City between 2011 and 2013; and curator of contemporary art at the Fundación Cisneros/Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros between 2005 and 2010. Palacios is currently a professor of the Master in Artistic Production at the Universidad Autónoma de Morelos and the Centro Morelense de las Artes, CEMA, in Cuernavaca, México.

Claudio Iglesias

Argentina

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Claudio Iglesias is an Argentine art critic, curator, translator and editor living in Buenos Aires.

Iglesias holds a Bachelor Degree in Literature from the Universidad de Buenos Aires and a Bachelor of Arts from the Universidad de Buenos Aires. Iglesias has been an advisor at the Nuevo Museo Energía de Arte Contemporáneo since its foundation and is part of the editorial collective Actividad de Uso.

Since 2012 he has worked as guest professor in the Art Department of the Universidad Torcuato di Tella in Buenos Aires. His essays have been published in magazines such as ramona, Otra Parte, A*Desk and Manifesta Journal, among others, as well as in various exhibition catalogues. He edited and translated Antología del decandentismo francés, 1880-1900 (Caja Negra Editora, 2007) and was awarded the fellowship Beca para Multiplicadores Culturales, Goethe Institute.

Sonia Becce

Argentina

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Sonia Becce is an independent curator based in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Since 2007 she has been a member of the Advisory Committee for CIFO (Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, Miami, Florida) and since 2014 a member of the Advisory Committee for Fundación Misol para las Artes, Bogotá.

In 2015 she was the curator of Alejandra Seeber: Autoamerican and Rosell Meseguer: OVNI Archive. In the same year she was part of the international jury for The Faena Prize for the Arts.

She served as President of the Gallery Selection Committee and jury of the Selection Committee of Cabinet Section of arteBA ’14 and ‘15.

In 2013, she curated the exhibitions of the Russian artists AES+F: The Liminal Space Trilogy and Eduardo Navarro: Mercosur Legal Study III at Faena Art Center. During the same year, she curated the project Ensayo de situación II: Soy un pedazo de atmósfera, at River Plate football stadium in Buenos Aires, organized by Universidad Torcuato Di Tella. In 2012, she was member of the Curatorial Committee at ARCO`12´s Solo Projects in Madrid. Among other projects, she has been curator of “smART”, Freedom Tower, Miami Dade College, “Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Somewhere/Nowhere”, Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo MUAC, Mexico City, and MALBA-Colección Costantini, Buenos Aires; and Co-Curator of the retrospective exhibition “Guillermo Kuitca” at the Centro de Arte Museo Reina Sofía, in Madrid and in MALBA-Colección Costantini, in Buenos Aires. She has also been the curator of several exhibitions of Latinamerican artists in Argentina and abroad.

She has coordinated the editions of the Kuitca’s Sudio Programme for young artists since 1991 and has been a close collaborator of the artist Guillermo Kuitca since 1989.

Kiki Mazzucchelli

Brazil

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Kiki Mazzucchelli is an independent curator, editor and writer working between London and São Paulo.

She holds an MA in Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths College and is currently a PhD candidate at TrAIN (University of the Arts). She is currently a member of the curatorial team for Sitelines, Site Santa Fe Biennial (2016), New Mexico. Among her latest exhibition projects are Tonico Lemos Auad’s solo exhibition at Pivô (São Paulo, 2015) and Pia Camil, Pablo Helguera and Pedro Reyes at MIMA (Middlesbrough, 2015), co-curated with Alix Collingwood-Swinburn.

She is one of the authors of Contemporary Art Brazil, (London: Transglobe, 2012); Art Cities of the Future: 21st Centuries Avant-Gardes (London: Phaidon, 2013); and Brazil: a celebration of Brazil’s contemporary culture and a regular contributor to international publications including Art Review (UK), Flash Art (Italy), Mousse (Italy) and Terremoto (Mexico).