POLITICAL AND POETIC ALPHABETS
Writing has always been a crucial artistic tool in the political sphere. In the sixties, several conceptual Latin American artists also began to explore the deconstruction of language to undermine fixed meanings and major cultural narratives, mixing writing with visual narratives to explore new poetic and political territories. In contrast, other artists in the gallery make use of more abstract visuals to undermine linguistic notions about linearity and meaning and to explore new forms of reason, perception and response to concrete realities.
Artists featured: Teresa Burga, Antonio Caro, Ulises Carrión, Lenora de Barros, León Ferrari, Gego (Gertrud Goldschmidt), Franz Mon, Margarita Paksa, Peter Roehr, Mira Schendel
THE EXPERIENCE OF TIME
Growing awareness that art is able to contain and express the passing of time provides the basis for the silent, programmatic artworks by the Japanese artist On Kawara, part of the MMK collection, and the Argentinian visual poet, conceptual artist and mail art exponent Edgardo Antonio Vigo. They both saw subjectivity as a construction within time and in marking its passing their artworks become a record and affirmation of both life and its ephemeral nature.
Artists featured: On Kawara, Edgardo Antonio Vigo
EXAMINING THE BRUSHSTROKE
WHEN EXPRESSIONISM TURNS CONCEPTUAL
Kenneth Kemble’s Gran pintura negra [Big Black Painting] (1960), part of the Moderno collection, and Alpen [Alps] by Gerard Richter (1968) from the MMK collection, are exhibited next to one another to compare the artists’ complex and markedly different explorations of the essential symbol of the painterly tradition, the brushstroke. Roy Lichtenstein (USA) removes the artistic gesture entirely by appropriating the visual language of comics and mass-produced objects. Experimenting along similar lines, Roy Lichtenstein (USA) removes the artistic gesture entirely by appropriating the visual language of comics and mass-produced objects.
These three artworks might be considered an homage to the brushstroke but also a caustic examination and deconstruction of the tradition it represents.
Artists featured:Kenneth Kemble, Roy Lichtenstein, Gerard Richter
This exhibition is suppported by