Two New Exhibitions at the Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA)
create a dialogue between Modern and Contemporary Latin American Abstract Art.
February 25–May 27, 2012
628 Alamitos Avenue
Long Beach, CA 90802
ESTEBAN LISA: PLAYING WITH LINES AND COLORS
Esteban Lisa: Playing with Lines and Colors, curated by Barbara Bloemink and Jorge Virgili, is a retrospective exhibition covering the work of Esteban Lisa from the 1930s to 1970s. It is also the first solo museum exhibition of the artist’s work in the United States. Together with Juan Del Prete and Joaquín Torres-García, Esteban Lisa (Toledo, Spain, b. 1895) is one of the pioneers of abstraction in Latin America. However, this fact is mostly unknown, because until very recently he was an unrecognized figure. This is primarily the result of two things: first, even though Lisa was a very prolific artist, he never exhibited during his lifetime, and second, the forms of abstraction he developed do not easily fit into the recognized modern abstract traditions that arose in Argentina and Latin America between the 1940s and 1970s.
The exhibition Esteban Lisa: Playing with Lines and Colors/Juego con líneas y colores is organized by the Museum of Latin American Art in association with Fundación Esteban Lisa in Buenos Aires and curated by Barbara Bloemink and Jorge Virgili. Sponsorship is provided by Colgate-Palmolive Company, Fundación Esteban Lisa, and Sayago & Pardon. Additional support is provided the Robert Gumbiner Foundation, Arts Council for Long Beach, City of Long Beach, and Isabella Hutchinson and Diego Gradowczyk. Media support is provided by KCRW (89.9FM).
MAGDALENA FERNANDEZ: 2iPM009
The exhibition Magdalena Fernández: 2iPM009 was organized by The Patricia & Philip Frost Art Museum, Florida International University and curated by Julia P. Herzberg. The current exhibition has four additional small video works on display related to the Mobile Paintings and Mobile Drawings series. Magdalena Fernández (Caracas, b. 1964) is a Venezuelan artist whose work has been associated with one of the most significant modern artistic traditions: geometric abstraction. There are many visual and conceptual connections between some of her seminal works and the works of Piet Mondrian, Kasimir Malevich, Sol LeWitt, and the Latin American artists Joaquín Torres-García, Jesús Soto, Gego, and the Madí Group. While it is true that Fernández is determined to position her own work within the traditions that these artists have founded, it is also true that she has transformed those traditions, sometimes subtly, and sometimes drastically. Julia Herzberg, curator of the exhibition, refers to the relationship between modern abstraction and Fernández’s work by stating that, “Fernández used sound, light and moving image to give a 21st century twist to a 20th century utopian vision.”
The exhibition Magdalena Fernández: 2iPM009 was organized by The Patricia & Philip Frost Art Museum, Florida International University and curated by Julia P. Herzberg. Support is provided by the Robert Gumbiner Foundation, Arts Council for Long Beach and City of Long Beach. Media support is provided by KCRW.
*Image above:
Private Collection, Madrid.
