The vibrant art of South America comes to the Royal Academy

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Radical Geometry: Modern Art of South America from the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection

The Sackler Wing, Royal Academy, Piccadilly, London

5 July – 28 September 2014

Radical Geometry: Modern Art of South America from the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection, now open at the Royal Academy, spans a dynamic period in South American art, charting the emergence of several distinct artistic movements in the cities of Montevideo (Uruguay), Buenos Aires (Argentina), São Paulo (Brazil), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) and Caracas (Venezuela), from the 1930s to the 1970s.

The show explores the development of an innovative abstract visual language that captured the positive spirit of the time and conveyed the radical aspirations of a young generation of artists. Comprising over 80 paintings and sculptures, the exhibition is chiefly drawn from the Collection of Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, the foremost collection of geometric abstract art from Latin America in private hands. Additional loans are from the Museum of Modern Art, New York, donated by Patricia Phelps de Cisneros. Many of the works on display have never been seen in the UK before.

The exhibition explores the early artistic revolutions of the ‘Río de la Plata’ [River Plate] region, named after the river that divides the cities of Montevideo and Buenos Aires. It begins in the 1930s with the return of Uruguayan artist Joaquín Torres García to Montevideo and his declaration of a new revolutionary art, drawing on indigenous American influences, later called the ‘School of the South’. A decade later, a group of artists from Buenos Aires, including Carmelo Arden Quin, Tomás Maldonado and Gyula Kosice, founded their own artistic movements – ‘Arte Madí’ and ‘Arte Concreto-Invención’ – to challenge the customs and confines of traditional painting. With a proclamation by artist Rhod Rothfuss in 1944 to abandon the conventional picture frame, the distinction between painting and sculpture also came to be blurred, as seen in one of the highlights of this section, Juan Melé’s, Irregular Frame No. 2, 1946.

Boundary-breaking art from Brazil, produced throughout the 1950s-60s, features in the second part of the exhibition, which will reveal new approaches to painting and sculpture in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Inspired in part by Concrete Poetry, monochrome, linear works such as Lygia Pape’s Untitled (from the series Weaving), 1959, Geraldo de Barros’ Diagonal Function, 1952, and Hélio Oiticica’s Painting 9, 1959, will be displayed alongside playful and interactive sculptures by Lygia Clark including Machine – Medium, 1962, from her noted ‘Bichos’ series. These works reflect the optimistic and outward-looking stance of an internationally ambitious, post-war Brazilian society, with art at its centre.

The exhibition concludes in Caracas, Venezuela, where works by Jesús Soto and Carlos Cruz-Diez lean towards kinetic art. Jesús Soto’s Physichromie No. 500, 1970 acts as a ‘light trap’, using a series of colour frames to create a work that changes colour with the movement of the visitor. Sculptures by Gego (Gertrude Goldschmidt), such as Trunk, 1976, and Sphere, 1976, will offer a sense of spiritual calmness with their delicate, line-based structure. Whilst using modern materials, Gego’s sculptures were made by hand, eschewing the technological innovations and machinery of the modern age.

Dates and opening hours

Saturday 5 July – Sunday 28 September 2014
10a.m.–6p.m. daily (last admission 5.30p.m.)
Fridays until 10p.m. (last admission 9.30p.m.)

Admission

£10 full price; concessions available; no charge for children under 12 and Friends of the RA.

Tickets

Tickets for Radical Geometry: Modern Art of South America from the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collectionare available daily at the RA or online at www.royalacademy.org.uk. Group bookings: Groups of 10+ are asked to book in advance. Telephone 020 7300 8027 or email [email protected].

A review of this exhibition will appear shortly in Cassone.

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