Minimal Means: Concrete Inventions in the US, Brazil and Spain
08/02/2019.
Zeit Contemporary Art [NYC] USA 24.01 > 16.03.2019
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA
A particularly interesting exhibition has been opened at the Zeit Contemporary Art gallery in New York: "Minimal Means: Concrete Inventions in the US, Brazil and Spain". Curated by Joan Robledo-Palop, the exhibition focuses on a group of artists whose creative careers evolved in the mid 1950s and 1960s in the US, Brazil and Spain.
The exhibition showcases thirty works by seventeen artists who have never before been juxtaposed in an exhibition and explores seemingly simultaneous ideas and methodologies, which actually developed independently and organically.
The exhibition showcases thirty works by seventeen artists who have never before been juxtaposed in an exhibition and explores seemingly simultaneous ideas and methodologies, which actually developed independently and organically.
Dan Flavin untitled (to V. Mayakovsky) 1, 1987. Zeit Contemporary Art. Minimal Means: Concrete Inventions in the US, Brazil and Spain
Jorge Oteiza Caja metafísica por conjunción de dos triedros. Vacío Respirando, 1972-1974 Zeit Contemporary Art. Minimal Means: Concrete Inventions in the US, Brazil and Spain
Minimal Means: Concrete Inventions in the US, Brazil and Spain
Hélio Oiticica Metaesquema 189, 1958 Gouache on light cardboard 12 x 15.9 in. (30,5 x 40,4 cm.) Courtesy of Zeit Contemporary Art, New York. Minimal Means: Concrete Inventions in the US, Brazil and Spain
Minimal Means: Concrete Inventions in the US, Brazil and Spain
Minimal Means: Concrete Inventions in the US, Brazil and Spain
Minimal Means: Concrete Inventions in the US, Brazil and Spain
Jose Maria Yturralde Forma ritmo-espacio, 1966 Synthetic painting, oil and acrylic on wood 43 1/3 x 41 3/4 x 1 in. (110 x 106 x 2.5 cm.). Minimal Means: Concrete Inventions in the US, Brazil and Spain
Josef Albers Homage to the Square: Golden, 1957 Oil on Masonite 32 x 32 in. (81.3 x 81.3 cm.). Minimal Means: Concrete Inventions in the US, Brazil and Spain
Donald Judd Untitled (print “G”), 1961 - 1977 Woodcut in ivory black on offset paper 21 x 29.25 in (53.3 x 74.3 cm). Minimal Means: Concrete Inventions in the US, Brazil and Spain
Minimal Means: Concrete Inventions in the US, Brazil and Spain
Elena Asins 12 E 59 10 KV 575, 1979 Zeit Contemporary Art. Minimal Means: Concrete Inventions in the US, Brazil and Spain
Minimal Means: Concrete Inventions in the US, Brazil and Spain
Minimal Means: Concrete Inventions in the US, Brazil and Spain
This is the first exhibit to bring together North American artists Josef and Anni Albers, Agnes Martin, Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, Sol LeWitt and Robert Mangold, with counterparts from Europe and Latin America: Jorge Oteiza, Manuel Barbadillo, Elena Asins, Jordi Teixidor, José María Yturralde, Mira Schendel, Willys de Castro, Lygia Clark, Lygia Pape and Hélio Oiticica.
With common roots in the art of Kazimir Malevich, Piet Mondrian and the experience of the Bauhaus, the artists in this exhibition expanded the legacy of constructivism and geometric abstraction into a new era. These artists created art defined by geometry, clarity and minimalism, reducing the formal aspects of the work of art to a minimal set of elements with endless possibilities. They not only expanded the boundaries of art, but also the limits of the artistic object and the ways it relates to authorship and production, as well as spectatorship and perception.
There are points of contact through geographic displacement, travels and friendships that led to individual elaborations of a shared legacy. Some of the artists barely knew each other; others moved from one part of the world to another, yet they became historical points of exchange. For instance, the work of Josef Albers was very present in the Brazilian artistic milieu of the 1950s, connecting advanced artistic practices in the US and the avant-garde in Latin America.
Spanish sculptor Jorge Oteiza traveled several times to Brazil in the 1950s, where he won the Grand Prize for Sculpture at the 4th Bienal de São Paulo in 1957, establishing a bridge between the art of the future Neo-Concrete group with the artistic proposals that were just starting to flourish in Francoist Spain. In the late 1950s, Manuel Barbadillo arrived in New York. This sojourn marked a transition from the subjectivism of the gestural abstraction of Informalism, happening in Europe in parallel to Abstract Expressionism, to a rational modular system. Barbadillo’s rationalism informed the artistic philosophy of the 1960s for artists attending the seminars on art and computer science organized by the Centro de Cálculo of the Universidad de Madrid.
The selection of works presented in this exhibition are a firm testimony that concrete abstractions, perhaps one of the highest achievements of the art of the art of the past century, do not have borders.
With common roots in the art of Kazimir Malevich, Piet Mondrian and the experience of the Bauhaus, the artists in this exhibition expanded the legacy of constructivism and geometric abstraction into a new era. These artists created art defined by geometry, clarity and minimalism, reducing the formal aspects of the work of art to a minimal set of elements with endless possibilities. They not only expanded the boundaries of art, but also the limits of the artistic object and the ways it relates to authorship and production, as well as spectatorship and perception.
There are points of contact through geographic displacement, travels and friendships that led to individual elaborations of a shared legacy. Some of the artists barely knew each other; others moved from one part of the world to another, yet they became historical points of exchange. For instance, the work of Josef Albers was very present in the Brazilian artistic milieu of the 1950s, connecting advanced artistic practices in the US and the avant-garde in Latin America.
Spanish sculptor Jorge Oteiza traveled several times to Brazil in the 1950s, where he won the Grand Prize for Sculpture at the 4th Bienal de São Paulo in 1957, establishing a bridge between the art of the future Neo-Concrete group with the artistic proposals that were just starting to flourish in Francoist Spain. In the late 1950s, Manuel Barbadillo arrived in New York. This sojourn marked a transition from the subjectivism of the gestural abstraction of Informalism, happening in Europe in parallel to Abstract Expressionism, to a rational modular system. Barbadillo’s rationalism informed the artistic philosophy of the 1960s for artists attending the seminars on art and computer science organized by the Centro de Cálculo of the Universidad de Madrid.
The selection of works presented in this exhibition are a firm testimony that concrete abstractions, perhaps one of the highest achievements of the art of the art of the past century, do not have borders.
“This sensorial investigations about space connected humanity and transcended languages, countries and continents. The work of these artists also contributed to expand the limits of the artistic object and the ways it relates to authorship and production, as well as spectatorship and perception.”
Joan Robledo-Palop.
This exhibition also highlights a period in the history of art that was remarkable because of the role of women at the forefront of the art practice. While women have worked for decades alongside men, they have not always been visibly acknowledged. This exhibit reaffirms the work of Anni Albers and Agnes Martin in the United States, Lygia Pape, Lygia Clark and Mira Schendel in Brazil, and Elena Asins in Spain. We celebrate their work, in most cases advanced against substantial personal and artistic difficulties. Their subtle abstractions enrich the plurality of this transnational dialogue in significant ways.
More information
Curators Comisarios
Joan Robledo-Palop
Venue Localización
111E 70th St, New York, NY. USA EEUU
Dates Fechas
through March 16th, 2019
hasta el 16 de marzo de 2019
Organitation Organización
The exhibition is organized by Zeit Contemporary Art and presented in collaboration with Edelman Arts, New York.
La exposición está organizada por Zeit Contemporary Art y presentada en colaboración con Edelman Arts, Nueva York.
Joan Robledo-Palop
Joan Robledo-Palop is an art historian specializing in modern and contemporary art. A graduate of Universitat de València, Autonomous University of Madrid and Yale University, Robledo-Palop started his career as a curator at the Fundación Chirivella Soriano in València, Spain. He later became a Research Fellow at the Institute of History in the Spanish National Research Council – CSIC, and a Visiting Scholar at New York University. He has also worked for curatorial departments at the Yale University Art Gallery and the Yale Center for British Art. He has taught and given public lectures at institutions such as Yale, Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid, Centre Pompidou Málaga and the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. He is the Founder and CEO of Zeit Contemporary Art, a New York-based firm specializing in modern, postwar and contemporary art.
