NEW YORK.-The Geometry of Hope: Latin American Abstract Art from the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection, a major exhibition comprising more than 100 works of art from the acclaimed Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros (CPPC), opens at New York University’s Grey Art Gallery on September 12, 2007. Together, the exhibition, which remains on view through December 8, and its important catalogue provide a comprehensive scholarly overview of Latin American Geometric Abstraction from the 1930s to the 1970s. This will be greatly enriched and expanded upon by an exceptional agenda of interdisciplinary public programs taking place throughout NYU and co-sponsored by the Grey, including poetry, music, lectures, and panel discussions, in addition to a major symposium.

The Geometry of Hope was organized by the Blanton Museum of Art, at The University of Texas at Austin, where it was seen earlier this year and encompassed some 130 works. The exhibition and its catalogue were the culminating project of the Cisneros Graduate Research Seminar at The University of Texas at Austin, a multi-year scholarly collaboration between the New York- and Caracas-based CPPC and the Blanton, headed by Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro, curator of Latin American Art at the Blanton and organizer of the exhibition.

Grey Art Gallery Director Lynn Gumpert states, “The Grey Art Gallery is thrilled to present The Geometry of Hope: Latin American Abstract Art from the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection. This exhibition promises to be an eye-opening experience for our visitors, especially those for whom the term ‘modern Latin American art’ generally connotes figurative painting or political murals. With many superb works from one of the world’s great collections of modern and contemporary art from Latin America, The Geometry of Hope will reveal that abstraction south of the border is anything but provincial and, indeed, developed within and influenced the international avant-garde. We thank Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro and his colleagues at the Blanton for working with the Grey to present this extraordinary exhibition.”

Patricia Phelps de Cisneros adds, “The Geometry of Hope began with a scholarly collaboration between the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros and The University of Texas. We are delighted that the exhibition will now be featured at another major university, in one of the cultural capitals of the world. In New York City, the work will be seen not only by students and faculty, but by a broad and diverse public. We are grateful to NYU and The University of Texas, and to the Grey and the Blanton Museum for helping to advance scholarship on modern Latin American art.”

Exhibition - The Geometry of Hope focuses on key cities in the development of abstraction in the Americas: Montevideo (1930s), Buenos Aires (1940s), São Paulo (1950s), Rio de Janeiro (1950s–60s), Paris (1960s), and Caracas (1960s–70s). In tracing the flow of ideas from one socio-geographic context to another, the exhibition challenges the view of Latin American art as a single phenomenon, revealing important differences and tensions among various artistic proposals articulated during the decades under examination. For example, Joaquín Torres-García’s fusion of ancient American art with Neo-Plasticism was roundly rejected by the next generation of ardent Marxists in Argentina. And the rational and internationalist aspirations of the São Paulo concretists of the 1950s were reinterpreted and charged with specific Brazilian references by the neoconcretists in Rio de Janeiro. The exhibition’s inclusion of Paris as a “Latin American” city underscores the cosmopolitan and international nature of Latin American abstraction—characteristics that are often ignored in American and European accounts of the history of modern art.

The exhibition includes work by approximately 30 artists. Among them are Joaquín Torres-García, from Montevideo; Alfredo Hlito and Tomás Maldonado, from Buenos Aires; Geraldo de Barros and Waldemar Cordeiro, from São Paulo; Hélio Oiticica and Lygia Clark, from Rio de Janeiro; and Jesús Rafael Soto and Carlos Cruz-Diez, from Paris and Caracas.

Publication - The Geometry of Hope is accompanied by a richly illustrated, 300-page, bilingual (English-Spanish) publication, published by the Blanton Museum of Art. This includes an introduction by Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro, scholarly essays on each of the cities represented in the exhibition, and extended essays presenting new research on 47 individual works of art. This focus on individual objects makes the book unusual among publications on Geometric Abstraction.

In addition to Dr. Pérez-Barreiro, authors include scholar Cecilia de Torres; Erin Aldana, The University of Texas doctoral candidate; Paulo Herkenhoff, independent curator; Luis Pérez-Oramas, The Estrellita Brodsky Curator of Latin American Art, The Museum of Modern Art, New York; and Serge Guilbaut, professor of art history, visual art, and theory, University of British Columbia, as well as 13 graduate students who participated in the Cisneros Seminar from The University of Texas, New York University, and other universities.

Symposium and Public Programs - NYU and The University of Texas have collaborated to present a major two-part symposium in conjunction with the exhibition. Part one brought distinguished international scholars to Austin on February 17, 2007. Part two will take place on October 5, 2007, in conjunction with the New York presentation of the exhibition. Participants will include Rubén Gallo, professor, Department of Spanish, Princeton University; Valerie Hillings, Assistant Curator, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Ariel Jiménez, curator, Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, Caracas and New York; Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro; and Luis Pérez-Oramas, among others. The symposium received support from the Fundación Cisneros.

In addition to the symposium, the Grey Art Gallery and NYU Dean for the Humanities and Professor of Fine Arts Edward Sullivan are coordinating a series of interdepartmental public programs: The Geometry of Hope: Abstraction as Cultural Expression—a Campus-wide Initiative. Featuring a variety of disciplines, this initiative includes such programs as “Poetry Readings: A Celebration of Verbal and Visual Culture in Latin America,” for which Latin American poets will read specially commissioned poems based on artworks featured in the exhibition; a two-part concert series, “New Sounds of Latin America”; a lecture on Latin American expatriates in Cold War Paris; and much more.

Sponsorship - The Geometry of Hope: Latin American Abstract Art from the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection, is organized by the Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, and curated by Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro. Generous funding for the exhibition is provided by the Eugene McDermott Foundation. The presentation at the Grey Art Gallery has been made possible, in part, by the Abby Weed Grey Trust. The catalogue and public programs are made possible by the support of the Fundación Cisneros, with additional program funding provided by the Grey’s Inter/National Council, a Visual Arts Initiative Award from the New York University’s Coordinating Council for Visual Arts, the New York University Humanities Initiative, and Professor Herman Berkman.