Ricardo Rendón – Vazio Contido / Contained Emptiness, texts by Paula Braga and David Miranda, Zipper Galeria, Sao Paulo, 2013

In this catalogue, Paula Braga writes: “In his works, Ricardo Rendón proposes a renaissance in reverse, that emphasizes manual work, and exposes the worker face of conceptual art, that which values the process, the singularity of each gesture, which, as we learned with Sisyphus, is a redeeming attitude. Rendón, therefore, joins a school of Latin American artists like Hélio Oiticica who practiced a “cordial conceptualism”, in Marcelo Campos’ apt expression; cosa mentale, no doubt, but smoothened by the appreciation of banal materials.

The obsessive works in which Rendón pierces a felt, card or plaster surface are based on an idea of repetitive procedure that is no stranger to conceptual art. But it is not enough for this Mexican artist to offer the script, the algorithm that defines the repetitions to be executed; it’s necessary to present the object, to scatter on the floor the remains of the repetitive process of piercing the industrial felt, thus exhibiting a dimension of the object called time, even if what remains of the work is more of a void than actually matter; a void that points to the idea of corrosion, wear and tear, disappearing, dematerialization through division into small parts.”

To download the full catalogue, click here

• Contexts

The Experimental Exercise of Freedom: Lygia Clark, Gego, Mathias Goeritz, Helio Oiticica, And Mira Schendel
By Rian Carvajal and Alma Ruiz
Essays by Catherine David, Suely Rolnik, Sonia Salzstein, Osvaldo Sanchez
January 2, 2000
MOCA
259 pages

This catalogue accompanied the exhibition Exercise of Freedom, on view at MOCA October 17 1999 – January 23, 2000.

• Modern Contexts

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.

• Modern Contexts

The Sites of Latin American Abstraction
Edited by Juan Ledezma. Foreword by Ella Fontanals-Cisneros. Introduction by Cecilia Fajardo-Hill
Charta / CIFO

The history of Latin American abstraction has not yet been completely written, but what has been written owes much to the Miami-based Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation. This substantial new publication includes 146 abstract geometric artworks from the 1930s-1970s–drawings, paintings, sculptures and photography from such cultural centers as Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Uruguay and Venezuela. It also elaborates on a new perspective: that Latin American identity greatly affected the art of the Modernist period. Art historian and curator Juan Ledezma creates unexpected connections and visual analogies across generational and national boundaries, offering, for example, socio-political corollaries between Latin American Concrete art and concurrent movements like Russian Constructivism and Suprematism.

• Modern Contexts

Inverted Utopias, Avant-Garde Art in Latin America
Mari Carmen Ramírez and Héctor Olea et al.
August 11, 2004
608 pages

In the twentieth century, avant-garde artists from Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean created extraordinary and highly innovative paintings, sculptures, assemblages, mixed-media works, and installations. This innovative book presents more than 250 works by some seventy of these artists (including Gego, Joaquín Torres-García, Xul Solar, and José Clemente Orozco) and artists’ groups, along with interpretive essays by leading authorities and newly translated manifestoes and other theoretical documents written by the artists. Together the images and texts showcase the astonishing artistic achievements of the Latin American avant-garde.

The book focuses on two decisive periods: the return from Europe in the 1920s of Latin American avant-garde pioneers; and the expansion of avant-garde activities throughout Latin America after World War II as artists expressed their independence from developments in Europe and the United States. As the authors explain, during these periods Latin American art was fueled by the belief that artistic creations could present a form of utopia—an inversion of the original premise that drove the European avant-garde—and serve as a model for a new society.

As an insightful source for new ideas about the nature and function of modern art, Inverted Utopias is an essential book that will become a classic text in the field.

Mari Carmen Ramírez is the Wortham Curator of Latin American Art and director of the International Center for the Arts of the Americas at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Héctor Olea is an independent scholar and curator specializing in Latin American modern art.

• Modern Contexts

ABSTRACT POSSIBLE: THE TAMAYO TAKE

Artists: Doug Ashford, Claire Barclay, José León Cerrillo, Matias Faldbakken, Claudia Fernández, Goldin+Senneby, Liam Gillick, Wade Guyton, Gunilla Klingberg, David Maljković, Mai-Thu Perret, Seth Price, Walid Raad, Emily Roysdon, Salón, Bojan Šarčević, Ultra-red, Anton Vidokle

Abstract Possible is the latest installment in the series Minor Histories, Larger Worlds at the Museo Tamayo. It also forms part of a larger research project on abstraction and contemporary art, entitled Abstract Possible, that is being car- ried out over the course of two years in various locations, including Malmö, Zurich, Stockholm and Stuttgart. A collaboration is being developed in each of the host institutions and will be manifested through different formats such as group shows, a duo exhibition, a seminar, a webpage.

To read more about this event, click here

Microhistorias y Macromundos III

26 de marzo a 7 de agosto de 2011

Curator: Maria Lind

Sala A, Museo Rufino Tamayo

Mexico City, Mexico

• Contemporary Contexts

Image: Thomas Hirschhorn, Abstract Resistance (Detail), 2006. Image extracted from www.walkerart.org

Abstract Resistance curated by Yasmil Raymond for the Walker Art Center, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 2010

With a new commission and works dating back to the 1950s, the exhibition Abstract Resistance brings together now-legendary figures as well as younger artists who have revolted against the aesthetic orthodoxies of their times. While these pieces do not conform to a single theme, they are united in challenging what is expected of art, from the way it looks to the role it plays in society at large. The show considers the metaphor of “resistance” as a complex formal and political force, as is suggested by the title. The exhibition, drawn mostly from the Walker collection, highlights works in assemblage, collage, and photomontage.

• Contemporary Contexts