The Geometry of Hope: Latin American Abstract Art from the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection Published by Blanton Museum of Art. Edited by Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro. Preface by Partricia Phelps de Cisneros. Text by Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro, Cecilia de Torres, Erin Aldana. Colorful and playful kinetic sculptures, experimental objects designed to be catalysts for community building, manifestos calling for joy and the negation of melancholy: these are the elements that have shaped The Geometry of Hope. The title of this richly illustrated, 340-page volume brings together two threads that epitomize postwar abstract art from Latin America: on the one hand, geometry, precision, clarity and reason; on the other, a utopian sense of hope. The book contains new scholarship by an international cast, with examinations of six key cities--Montevideo, Buenos Aires, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Caracas and Paris--as well as insightful essays on individual works of art. It comes to us via the Cisneros Graduate Seminar, a collaborative program of the Blanton Museum in Austin, Texas, and the renowned Fundación Cisneros, and covers more than four decades of art-making with works by 52 artists, among them Lygia Clark, Gego, Jesús Rafael Soto and Hélio Oiticica.
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