Surface and Subtext: Latin American Geometric Abstraction

About the Exhibition

September 13 – December 29, 2002

In the 1960s a group of Argentine artists, inspired by advances in technology and the Constructivist tradition in Latin America and in Europe, began experimenting with the depiction of perceived space and spatial relationships in non-representational paintings. Known as Arte Generativo artists, they manipulated the most basic artistic elements—color, line, and form—to create abstract, three-dimensional painted spaces on two-dimensional surfaces, challenging the traditional uses of perspective in representational painting. Surface and Subtext brings together paintings from the 1960s through the early 1980s by Ary Brizzi, Miguel Angel Vidal, and Eduardo Mac Entyre, along with works by Omar Rayo and Manuel Espinosa, who were not associated with Arte Generativo, although they similarly defied the limitations of the flat surface in their paintings. With works drawn entirely from the Blanton’s permanent collection, this exhibition suggests the ideological, artistic, and social significance of geometric abstraction in Latin America during these decades.