NORTON, MA.- Correspondences: Contemporary Art from the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros brings thirty-four works from the internationally celebrated CPPC to Wheaton College’s Beard and Weil Galleries. The exhibition includes work by many of the most important Latin American artists of the last half century. The exhibition will take place February 4 – April 10, 2008.

Wheaton students have played a central role in the creation of Correspondences, its catalogue, and an accompanying educational program. The exhibition follows the model of other CPPC collaborations with academic institutions, including Harvard University’s Fogg Art Museum, The University of Texas at Austin’s Blanton Museum of Art, and New York University and its Grey Art Gallery.

Correspondences provides an illuminating view of the range and sophistication of modern and contemporary Latin American art. The exhibition demonstrates the various ways in which many artists, working in diverse mediums, have reinterpreted the act of drawing—as an emotional experience, a graphic representation of reality, a work in progress, or a conceptual strategy. The title of the exhibition refers to the links, or correspondences, both among the contemporary works in the exhibition and between the works of certain modern and contemporary artists. Art by Alejandro Otero, Hélio Oiticica, and Gego, for example, resonates with that of many contemporary artists for whom drawing is a concept that is likely to be revealed in works that are not, in fact, drawings. These include Ana Mendieta, Sigfredo Chacón, and Ernesto Neto, among others.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue with approximately forty-five illustrations. It includes a preface by Patricia Phelps de Cisneros; a foreword by Wheaton College President Ronald A. Crutcher; an essay by exhibition curator Carlos Palacios, Curator of Contemporary Art at the CPPC; biographical information on the artists represented in the exhibition; and interpretive commentaries on individual artworks. The latter were written by thirteen students from Wheaton College’s Hispanic studies, art history, and studio arts departments, working with CPPC curators and educators and Wheaton faculty. The essays were based on research conducted by Wheaton students who participated in a 2007 summer internship program in the offices of the CPPC.

In addition, Wheaton students, working under the direction of María del Carmen González, the CPPC’s Head of International Education Programs, have created a special teachers’ guide to accompany a CPPC education program, Piensa en Arte, that is offered in conjunction with exhibitions of work from the collection.