The Geometry of Hope, Latin American Art from the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection
by Gabriel Perez-Barreiro (Author and Editor), Cecilia de Torres (Author), and Patricia Phelps de Cisnernos (Preface)
July 1, 2007
The Blanton Museum of Art
344 pages
Colorful and playful kinetic sculptures, experimental objects designed to be catalysts for community building, manifestos calling for joy and the negation of melancholy: these are the elements that have shaped The Geometry of Hope. The title of this richly illustrated, 340-page volume brings together two threads that epitomize postwar abstract art from Latin America: on the one hand, geometry, precision, clarity and reason; on the other, a utopian sense of hope. The book contains new scholarship by an international cast, with examinations of six key cities–Montevideo, Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Caracas and Paris–as well as insightful essays on individual works of art. It comes to us via the Cisneros Graduate Seminar, a collaborative program of the Blanton Museum in Austin, Texas, and the renowned Fundacion Cisneros, and covers more than four decades of art-making with works by 52 artists, among them Lygia Clark, Gego, Jesus Rafael Soto and Helio Oiticica.