Artists: Emilia Azcárate, Artur Barrio, Jacques Bedel, Coco Bedoya, Luis F. Benedit, Paulo Bruscky, Jorge Caraballo, Sigfredo Chacón, Emilio Chapela, Guillermo Deisler, Mirtha Dermisache, Anna Bella Geiger , León Ferrari, Jaime Higa, Eduardo Kac, Leandro Katz, Guillermo Kuitca, David Lamelas, Marie Orensanz , Clemente Padín, Claudio Perna, Federico Peralta Ramos, Dalila Puzzovio, Juan Pablo Renzi, Osvaldo Romberg, Juan Carlos Romero, Eduardo Santiere, Mira Schendel, Pablo Suarez, Horacio Zabala, and Carlos Zerpa.

Grafías y ecuaciones
June 1 – August 5, 2015
Henrique Faria Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires, Argentina

¿En qué momento una letra se convierte en una figura, un garabato en un signo, una línea en un significante, una imagen en una palabra, un poema en un dibujo, una consigna política en una afirmación de lo sensible? ¿En qué momento, en qué preciso momento, nuestra percepción se disloca para entrar en una zona de turbulencia en la  que se entreveran signos y figuras? Grafías y ecuaciones es una exploración en las obras de artistas que transitaron por esa zona de turbulencia donde las divisiones convencionales entre palabra e imagen ya no funcionan.

Las grafías de las obras que se exhiben en esta exposición son también ecuaciones: equivalencias y analogías que hace la imaginación para encontrarse con la diferencia, lo irreductible o el sinsentido en un laberinto de trazos metafísicos, políticos o plásticos. Sea como medición previa para cualquier obra, sea como traducción irrisoria o paródica, sea como pasaje de un sistema a otro, la diferencia entre signo lingüístico e imagen visual colapsa para dar lugar a un campo experimental que nos impulsa a una indagación por el Sentido y, al mismo tiempo, a una exploración de los sentidos.

Gonzalo Aguilar

• Happenings

Artists: Aitken, Francis Alÿs, Miguel Amat, Stanley Brouwn, James Brown, Ryan Brown, Carlos Bunga, Daniel Buren, Sergio Camargo, Mario Carreño, Natalia Castañeda, Carla Chaim, Lygia Clark, Dadamaino, Sandu Darié, Willys De Castro, Iran do, Leonardo Drew, Danilo Dueñas, Eugenio Espinoza, Qin Feng, José Gabriel Fernández, Magdalena Fernández, Fernanda Fragateiro, Mario Garcia Torres, Theaster Gates, Gego, Gunther Gerszo, Jaime Gili, Fernanda Gomes, Alberto Greco, Sara Grilo, Arturo Herrera, Karl Hugo Schmolz, Alfred Jensen, Donald Judd, William Kentridge, Jannis Kounellis, Liz Larner, Jac Leirner, Sol Lewitt, Guido Llinas, Anna Maria Maiolino, Raul Martinez, Sarah Morris, Helio Oiticica, Gabriel Orozco, Alejandro Otero, Claudio Perna, Liliana Porter, Carlos Puche, Eduardo Ramirez Villamizar, Dorothea Rockburne, Carlos Rojas, Osvaldo Romberg, Ana Sacerdote, Espirito Santo, Mira Schendel, Harald Schmitz Schmelzer, Gunter Schroeder, Gabriel Sierra, Lolo Soldevilla, Jesús Soto, Eduardo Terrazas, Erwin Thorn, Fred Tomaselli, Richard Tuttle, Adan Vallecillo, Adrián Villar Rojas, Alfred Wenemoser, Pae White.

Impulse, Reason, Sense, Conflict -Abstract Art from the Ella Fontanals-Cisneros Collection
December 3, 2014 – March 8, 2015
CIFO Art Space
Miami, FL, USA

The exhibition includes 105 pieces by 72 artists from different generations and latitudes, who share their interpretations and philosophies of abstraction. The exhibition was organized by CIFO.

Impulse, Reason, Sense, Conflict explores abstraction as an aesthetic category instead of as a movement or art trend.  Since its inception abstraction has provided a series of models that remain paradigmatic and exemplary  in today’s art production. The exhibition is divided in four areas:

Abstract Impulses dedicated to the rupture with mimetic representation and its concomitant representational crisis with the subsequence substitution of the represented object by the structural elements of painting itself (color, line, etc.) On this section the artists represented will include Mario Garcia Torres, Theaster Gates, Andreas Gursky, Anna Maria Maiolino, Sarah Morris, Reinhard Mucha, Helio Oiticica, Liliana Porter, Karl Hugo Schmolz, Fred Tomaselli, Adrián Villar Rojas, and Pae White among others.

Laboratory of Reason refers to the questioning of the nature, essence and even the existence of art implied in abstration. Instead of asking “what is beauty?,” this section questions art’s existence to the extreme of declaring it dead. Artists included on this section are Doug  Aitken, Lygia Clark, Dadamaino, Olafur Eliasson, Fernanda Fragateiro, Fernanda Gomes, Arturo Herrera, Donald Judd, William Kentridge, Liz Larner, Jac Leirner, Gabriel Orozco, Osvaldo Romberg, Gabriel  Sierra, and Alfred Wenemoser among others.

Uncommon Senses relates to the integration and crossover of other art forms. With the introduction of different materials, media and art forms such as theater, music, dance and literature, abstraction demanded an approach that required the use of multiple senses, both from its makers but also art’s viewers. Francis Alÿs, Stanley Brouwn, Sergio Camargo, Willys De Castro, Qin Feng, Gego, Alberto Greco, Jannis Kounellis, Sol Lewitt, Dorothea Rockburne, Mira Schendel, Erwin Thorn, and Richard Tuttle are some of the artists in this section.

Spatial Conflicts touches on abstraction as a radical change in the conception of spatiality that substituted the Rennaisance perspectival notion of space. Abstract art promotes a real experience. In this section, we showcase Antonio Asis, Carlos Bunga, Daniel Buren, Mario Carreño, Iran do, Espirito Santo, Eugenio Espinoza, Sarah Grilo, Gunther Gerszo, Alfred Jensen, Alejandro Otero, Jesús Soto, Eduardo Terrazas, and Erwin Thorn among others.

Image: Miguel Amat, Series: Capitalismo y Vanguardia, 2006-2010. Photo by Oriol Tarridas.

• Happenings

Artists: Emilia Azcárate, Alessandro Balteo Yazbeck, Cecilia Biagini, Sigfredo Chacón, Emilio Chapela, Eduardo Costa, Willys de Castro, Diana de Solares, Marcolina Dipierro, Eugenio Espinoza, Jaime Gili, Mathias Goeritz, Juan Iribarren, Bárbara Kaplan, Ramsés Larzábal, Raúl Lozza, Beatriz Olano, César Paternosto, Alejandro Puente, Luis Roldán, Osvaldo Romberg, Joaquín Torres García, and Horacio Zabala.

Dirty Geometry
December 2 -7, 2014
Curated by Osvaldo Romberg
Mana Contemporary
Miami, FL, USA

Dirty geometry has existed throughout 20th century art although not in a manifest way; it implies a subversion of the laws of logical rigor, systemism and utopian modernism that have pervaded geometry since Kandinsky. In his milestone book Concerning the Spiritual in Art, Kandinsky argues against geometry as decoration; instead, he promotes geometrical painting as a spiritual tool. The quest of the spiritual, of a balance between the mind and intellectual order constituted the fundamental idea behind geometric art. Geometrical abstraction was used in different times, as we see for instance in Kandinsky’s compositions, in the rigorous nihilism of Malevich’s “Black on Black”, and in the concrete iconography of Max Bill.

Through my concept of “Dirty Geometry,” I want to undermine the rigid, global imposition of geometry that has dominated from the beginning of the 20th century. Of course, other artists have already played with this approach more or less consciously: Rothko when he broke the grid, Frank Stella with his Cone and Pillars series from the eighties.

However I came to realize that Latin-America offers the most prominent examples of “Dirty Geometry.” First, this might be explained by the often rudimentary absorption of the center by the periphery, as peripheral access to major art trends has long been mediated by art reproductions, and perceived through local cultural prisms. This is even truer in Latin-America where most countries lacked a radical and contemporary art scene. Secondly, in Latin America one always finds forms of political and existential resistance against the values of neo-liberalism embodied by the center.

“Dirty Geometry” will question different aspects of American, Russian and European abstract art such as the imposition of polished finish on paintings, the compositions and the purity of its lines, classical applications of colors inherited from the Bauhaus, Concrete Art, etc.

In the forties for instance, the Latin-American group MADI challenged the format of the canvas, the relation between two and three dimensions, etc. In the sixties the Latin-America group of Kinetic Art in Paris challenged the static geometry produced by artists such as Vasarely and Herbin, and introduced movement, light and shadow to abstract art.

I would therefore suggest that Latin-America has proceeded to elaborate a kind of creolization of the dominant geometrical art; this is a recurrent phenomenon in other fields of Latin-American culture, and we encounter it in religion, education, food, inventions, etc.

The more figuration moves away from reality and representation, the more it needs to resort to theory in order to retain legitimacy. Geometry as we traditionally conceive it can only be legitimized by a tight, rigid theoretical framework. “Dirty Geometry” is therefore a rebellious attempt to break from all theoretical frameworks and thus invent a geometry that would be free from theory. This is a dirty war, one that we could define as “below the belt”.  George Bataille believed that “divine filth” brings about true eroticism; likewise, I would suggest that it is possible to bring about an eroticism of geometry through dirt.

• Happenings

Artists: Alessandro Balteo Yazbeck, Hercules Barsotti, Willys de Castro, Jaime Davidovich, Guillermo Deisler, Mirtha Dermisache, León Ferrari, Héctor Fuenmayor, Anna Bella Geiger, Leandro Katz, Gerd Leufert, Luis Roldán, Osvaldo Romberg, Eduardo Santiere, Horacio Zabala.

Drawings from the South of America
January 24 – February 8, 2014
Henrique Faria Fine Art
New York, NY, USA

*Image: Horacio Zabala, “Terra Ignota”, 1973, Ink on paper, 36.4 x 82.4 cm

• Happenings

Art to Art. Life to Life
Osvaldo Romberg. 
The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, 2000 Art begins when life is not enough. In modern culture the acceptance of death signifies the loss of connection with the infinite. It is in this area of thinking, in the loss of the infinite, that art gives relief and new hopes for spirituality. Art makes evident (and occasionally succeeds in resolving) the conflict between being and integrating with the world. This is a dilemma which religion can no longer address.
 All the religions of the world are narratives. In these narratives are implicit mythologies and explanations which help people to survive the panic of death and solitude. In the past, art merely rearticulated these narratives. In recent years, however, I have observed that art is replacing religion by raising its own issues of morality, identity, mortality, and transcendence. Art used to be the illustration of the metaphysical. It has now become the metaphysical itself. The vitality and dynamism of contemporary art challenges religions ability to face the relevant issues at the end of the millennium: artificiality, reproduction of the species, and equality. Paraphrasing Martin Heidegger, we can say that the authentic dialogue with the art of an artist is artistic, as opposed to critical. There is no artistic dialogue between artists and those who do not believe in the power of art to contain essential truths. Art can be viewed as an antidote to the static and paralyzing force of religion in a post-capitalist, globalist era. The idea of art as a regenerative activity is described in The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse, which I read in my adolescence. The book is about the translation of all information systems and human knowledge into one code, The Game. Once you enter this universal language, you can integrate all aspects of human experience. Marcel Duchamp is the “Magister Ludi.” Art today can surpass the two pervasive theories confronting our post-capitalist world: the pseudo-democratic relativism of postmodernism vs. the oppressive dictatorship of fundamentalism. Referring to The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even, in a 1966 interview with Pierre Cabanne, Duchamp said, “… I almost never put any calculations into the Large Glass. Simply, I thought of the idea of a projection, of an invisible fourth dimension, something you couldn’t see with your eyes.” Is this not the domain of the divine?

Traducido del inglés

El arte al arte, la vida a la vida. Osvaldo Romberg.
 The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, 2000 El arte comienza cuando la vida no es suficiente. En la cultura moderna, la aceptación de la muerte significa la pérdida de la conexión con lo infinito. Es dentro de esta área de pensamiento, en la pérdida de lo infinito, que el arte da alivio y nuevas esperanzas para una espiritualidad. El arte hace evidente (y en ocasiones tiene éxito en resolver) el conflicto entre ser e integrarse con el mundo. Este es un dilema que la religión no puede abordar. Todas las religiones del mundo son narrativas. En estas narrativas, mitologías y explicaciones que ayudan a la gente a sobrevivir el pánico de la muerte y la soledad se hacen implícitas. En el pasado, el arte simplemente expresaba estas narrativas.  En años recientes, sin embargo, he observado que el arte está reemplazando a la religión al manifestar sus propios problemas de moralidad, identidad, mortalidad y trascendencia. El arte solía ser la ilustración de lo metafísico. Hoy en día se ha vuelto lo metafísico. La vitalidad y el dinamismo del arte contemporáneo cuestionan la capacidad de la religión de enfrentar los temas del fin del milenio: artificialidad, reproducción de las especies, e igualdad. Parafraseando a Martin Heidegger, podemos decir que el diálogo auténtico con el arte de un artista es artístico, a diferencia de crítico. No existe un diálogo artístico entre los artistas y aquellos que no creen en el poder del arte de contener estas verdades esenciales. El arte puede ser visto como antídoto a la fuerza estática y paralizante de la religión en la era post-capitalista y global. La idea del arte como actividad regenerativa es descrita en El Juego de los Abalorios por Hermann Hesse, el cual leí en mi adolescencia. El libro es acerca de la traducción de todos los sistemas de información y el conocimiento humano en un sólo código: El Juego. Al entrar en este lenguaje universal, te puedes integrar a todos los aspectos de la experiencia humana. Marcel Ducham es el “Magister Ludi”. El arte hoy en día puede superar las dos teorías generalizadas que confrontan nuestro mundo post-capitalista: el relativismo pseudo-democrático  del posmodernismo vs. la dictadura opresora del fundamentalismo. Al referirse a La novia puesta al desnudo por sus solteros, incluso, en una entrevista de 1966 con Pierre Cabanne, Duchamp dijo “a pesar de que casi no haya incluido ningún cálculo en Le Grand Verre… Simplemente, pensé en la idea de una proyección, de una cuarta dimensión invisible puesto que no se puede ver con los ojos”. ¿No es este el dominio de lo divino?

Selected Biographical Information

Education / Training

• 1956-1962: Universidad de Buenos Aires, Facultad de Arquitectura.

Solo Exhibitions

• 2013: “The Color Factor”, Henrique Faria Fine Art, New York, USA.
• 2012: “Color Constellation Project”, 11×7 Galería de Arte, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• 2011: “Works from the 1970s”, Henrique Faria Fine Art, New York, USA.
• 2011: Zemack Contemporary Art Gallery, Tel Aviv.
• 2011: “Drawings from the series Art History”, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, USA.
• 2010: “Osvaldo Romberg: The study of structures and story telling”, The Artists’ House, Tel Aviv.
• 2010: “1960 – 2010 Works on paper”, Galería Laura Haber, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• 2010: “The Eye of the Fly (Multimedia installation)”, Mestrovic Pavilion, Zagrev, Croatia.
• 2009: “Video Installation”, Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz, Austria.
• 2009: “Videos and Stills”, Z.K.M., Karlsruhe.
• 2009: “Buildings, Footprints, and Watercolors”, Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey.
• 2008: “Videos and Stills”, Centro Cultural Recoleta, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• 2008: “Dear Theo, The Night that Van Gogh Cried”, Galería Vasari, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• 2007: “Jesus de Buenos Aires”, Kunst Museum, Bonn.
• 2007: “Buildings Footprints”, Museo de Arte Moderno, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• 2007: “Framing the Art”, Heike Curtze Gallery, Vienna.
• 2005: “Narrative Architectural (1987—2005)”, (cat.), Musée d’Art Moderne, Saint Etienne.
• 2005: “Text, Image, Object (1963 – 2005)”, (cat.), Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven.
• 2003: “From Paradise to Paradise: A Hypertext about Love in Three Parts”, Universal Concepts Unlimited, New York, USA.
• 2001: “The Library Is Burning”, (recent books), Jan Van der Donk Gallery, New York, USA.
• 2000: “Bésame Mucho: A Hypertext About Love”, (cat.), Domgrabungsmuseum, Salzburg; White Box Gallery, New York, USA.
• 2000: “Retinal-Non-Retinal”, (cat.), Staedtische Kunstsammlungen, Augsburg.
• 1999: “Romberg´s Walks at the Kunsthistorische Museum” (cat.), Kunsthistorische Museum, Vienna and Galerie Heike Curtze, Vienna.
• 1997: “Bypass (1972-1997)”, (cat.), Kunstmuseum, Bonn.
• 1997: “Osvaldo Romberg: A Survey (1974-1997)”, Stux Gallery, New York, USA.
• 1996: “+2000/-2000 Even” (cat.), exhibited simultaneously at: Fundacion Xavier Corbero, Barcelona; Ludwig Museum, Budapest; Ludwig Museum, Cologne; Museum of Modern Art, Odessa; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; The Reykjavik Municipal Art Museum, Reykjavik; Stadtgalerie, Saarbruecken; Tel Aviv University Gallery, Central Library; Sudo Museum, Tokyo; Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna.

Group Exhibitions

• 2012: “Palabras, imágenes y otros textos”, Museo de Arte Moderno, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• 2011: “Sistemas, Acciones y Procesos: 1965-1975”, Fundación Proa, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• 2011: “A Line of Color”, Henrique Faria Fine Art, New York, USA.
• 2010: “Imán: Nueva York”, Fundación Proa, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• 2008: “Medium Religion”, Z.K.M. Zentrum fur Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe.
• 2007: “Lightning”, Galerie Heike Curtze, Salzburg.
• 2005: “Domicile: Privé/Public (installations of “Syzygy III” and “The Last, Machu Pichu”)”, Musée d’Art Moderne, Saint Etienne.
• 2000: “Topologies: Weiner, Le Va, Anastasi, Romberg”, White Box Gallery, New York, USA.
• 1999: “Faith”, The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Connecticut, USA.
• 1999: “Plural Speech”, White Box Gallery, New York, USA.
• 1998: “The Seventies”, Tel Aviv Museum, Tel Aviv.
• 1997: “Unmapping the Earth”, Kwangju Biennial.
• 1997: “Transversions”, Second Biennial of Johannesburg.
• 1995: “Avant-Garde Walk a Venezia”, Venice Biennial, Italy.
• 1995: “White Machu Pichu”, Artists’ Museum, Mitzpeh Ramon, Israel.

Collections

• Museo de Arte Moderno, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• MUHKA-Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp.
• Kunstmuseum, Bonn.
• Museo de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• Ludwig Museum, Cologne, Germany.
• Leopold-Hoesch Museum, Dueren.
• Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg.
• The Haifa Museum of Modern Art, Haifa.
• Sprengel Museum, Hannover.
• The Israel Museum, Jerusalem.
• California State University, University Library, Long Beach, USA.
• Wilhelm Hack Museum, Ludwigshafen.
• Jewish Museum, New York, USA.
• Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA.
• Philadelphia Museum, Philadelphia.
• The Tel Aviv Museum, Tel Aviv.
• Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna.
• Library of Congress, Washington, DC., USA.

• Artists