Waldemar Cordeiro: Constellations—From Concrete Art to Computer Art

The exhibition Waldemar Cordeiro: Constellations—From Concrete Art to Computer Art at ZKM | Karlsruhe is the first retrospective of the Brazilian artist, theorist, urbanist, and landscape architect Waldemar Cordeiro (1925–73) in Germany. As a central figure of concrete art, Cordeiro played a pivotal role in the history of Brazilian art during the twentieth century. His work reflects the profound social, cultural, and technological changes of his time, not least in his pioneering experiments with computer-generated art in Latin America in the late 1960s. 

Born in Rome in 1925, Waldemar Cordeiro moved from Italy to Brazil after the Second World War, where he began creating abstract works in the late 1940s. In 1949, he participated in the inaugural exhibition Do figurativismo ao abstracionismo [From Figurativism to Abstractionism] of the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (MAM/SP). In 1952, he co-founded the Grupo Ruptura, a collective of abstract artists in São Paulo who rejected the naturalist style of painting predominant in South America at the time. Cordeiro authored the group’s manifesto, which—aligning with the forward-thinking visions of Brazilian modernism and the general spirit of optimism at the time—called for a “rupture” from figurative art and advocated for a new visual language grounded in clarity, objectivity, and the spatial principles of the Italian renaissance. 

The exhibition at the ZKM presents Cordeiro’s oeuvre following four major phases: The first phase, the Concretismo [concrete art] of the late 1940s and 1950s, is characterized by precise lines and abstract arrangements of colored shapes. With Geometria intuitiva [intuitive geometry], Cordeiro turned away from the search for rational form and began incorporating organic shapes, bright tropical colors, and randomness while increasingly turning his attention to the viewer’s perceptual experience. Popcreto—a blend of pop art and concrete art—was Cordeiro’s reaction to the new realism movement in art, developed against the backdrop of Brazil’s 1964 military coup. Arteônica, a term coined by Cordeiro, refers to the fourth phase, combining “arte” [art] and “electrônica” [electronics] in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

As one of the first artists in South America, Waldemar Cordeiro began exploring the nascent computer technology in the 1960s and engaged in close correspondence with computer art pioneers and theorists, including Otto Beckmann (1908–97), Herbert W. Franke (1927–2022), and Hiroshi Kawano (1925–2012), as well as the German philosopher and writer Max Bense (1910–90). From 1968 onwards, Cordeiro and physicist Giorgio Moscati (*1934) jointly produced what are considered to be the first computer-generated artworks of Latin America. By participating in various international exhibitions, such as Tendencies 4. Computers and Visual Research (1969) in Zagreb, Croatia (formerly Yugoslavia), and being decisive for the organization of exhibitions such as Computer Plotter Art (1970) and Arteônica (1971) in São Paulo, Cordeiro played a crucial role in the spread of computer art, which he considered a logical evolution of concrete art. This makes Cordeiro one of the few artists who embodied the commonly emphasized connection between concrete art and digital art in their own lifetime.

The exhibition at the ZKM is based on a 2024 retrospective presented at The Mayor Gallery in London. In Karlsruhe, the exhibition is augmented with photographs, letters, and print material from the collection and archives of the ZKM which shed light on Cordeiro’s connections to the international computer art movement. The exhibition concludes with the first ever work of South American video art: the ground-breaking M3×3 by Waldemar Cordeiro’s daughter Analivia Cordeiro. This computer-generated choreography created in 1973, which was dedicated to her late father, was rediscovered in the ZKM archives during the preparations for her 2023 solo exhibition From Body to Code.

Curatorial team: Jelena Matičić, Christian Platz, Margit Rosen, Philipp Ziegler
Scientific advisor: Felix Mittelberger
Curators of the exhibition at The Mayor Gallery, London: James Mayor, Christine Hourdé
Special thanks to: Analivia Cordeiro

Press contact: Lilli Roser, lilli.roser@zkm.de / T +49 (0) 721-8100-1364