Geometric Abstraction: Latin American Art from the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection
Fogg Museum of Art
Harvard University
32 Quincy Street
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA

Information about the catalogue for the exhibition can be found here.

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Organized by the Harvard University Art Museums in collaboration with the Fundación Cisneros and the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, this exhibition presented more than sixty works of geometric abstraction by artists from Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Presented at the Fogg Art Museum, the exhibition offered for the first time in North America an in-depth look at an important dimension of Latin American art that was under-represented in U.S. collections and exhibitions.

Geometric Abstraction: Latin American Art from The Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection examined how artists from Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and Venezuela developed new visual languages grounded in geometric abstraction during the mid-20th century. These artists explored questions of structure, perception, and space, often redefining the formal boundaries of painting and sculpture.

In Argentina, artists gathered around the avant-garde magazine Arturo and later formed the Grupo Madí, whose members rejected traditional framing and experimented with shaped canvases, movable elements, and modular constructions. In Brazil, Concretist artists in São Paulo emphasized the artwork as a constructed object defined by precise geometric order, while Neo-Concretists in Rio de Janeiro introduced more organic and participatory forms that called for active engagement by the viewer.

In Caracas, Venezuelan artists associated with Constructivism and Kineticism developed new strategies for incorporating motion and light into their practice. They produced works that responded to the viewer's movement and challenged the boundaries between painting, sculpture, and environment.

Latin American geometric abstraction emerged within a broader international network of influence and exchange. Many of the artists featured in the exhibition, such as Alejandro Otero, Lygia Clark, and Alfredo Hlito, studied or worked in Europe during the 1940s through the 1960s. Others, including Gego, Gyula Kosice, and Mira Schendel, were born in Europe but developed their artistic practices in Latin America. European figures like Max Bill, Fernand Léger, Victor Vasarely, Antoine Pevsner, and Jean Arp also contributed to the region’s visual culture through exhibitions, publications, and public commissions.

In conjunction with the exhibition, a two-day public symposium, Geometric Abstraction in Latin American Art, was held on March 9–10, 2001, at the Sackler Museum. Speakers included Paulo Herkenhoff (adjunct curator, The Museum of Modern Art), Guy Brett (critic and curator), Yve-Alain Bois (Joseph Pulitzer, Jr. Professor of Modern Art, Harvard University), Luis Pérez-Oramas (curator, Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros), with a closing discussion moderated by Mary Schneider Enriquez.The symposium was complemented by related lectures from Gustavo Buntinx (independent scholar, SUR-Casa de Estudios del Socialismo, Lima) and James Oles (assistant professor, Art Department, Wellesley College).

A fully illustrated bilingual catalogue accompanied the exhibition, co-published by the Harvard University Art Museums and the Fundación Cisneros, and distributed by Yale University Press. The publication includes critical essays by Yve-Alain Bois, Paulo Herkenhoff, Mary Schneider Enriquez, Luis Pérez-Oramas, and Ariel Jiménez, as well as original artist texts and manifestos.

Information about the catalogue can be found here.

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Images of the Exhibition

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Video This 2001 news segment from Venevisión’s primetime broadcast covers the opening of Geometric Abstraction: Latin American Art from The Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection at Harvard University’s Fogg Art Museum.