Galería

In the early twentieth century, Abstraction in Europe had become the alternative tradition in painting and sculpture as a response to the expansion of Realism. Wanting to represent the world in a mimetic manner was no longer a fundamental search in art and it was believed, rather, that art should build an autonomous visual language highlighting chromatic, formal and structural aspects.

By the middle of the century, Abstraction became the predominant artistic language in Europe, the United States and Latin America. However, it separated into two different lines throughout its development: one marked by research on shape and color that was gestural, irrational, spontaneous and emotional with indefinite and free forms and without a clear order or center:
Lyrical Abstraction, while other was affected by shape and structure and was rational, uniform, solid and impersonal: Geometric Abstraction. Thus, Abstraction debated between these two approaches from the start, which eventually resulted in different practices, some linked to Lyrical Abstraction such as Art Informel and Tachism in France and Abstract Expressionism in the United States, and others to Geometric Abstraction and Constructivism like the Neo-Concrete Movement in Brazil, the Concrete-Invention Art in Argentina and Geometric Abstraction in Colombia, among others.

Abstraction belongs to a language that seeks to be explored from different approaches, both subjective and emotional as well as objective and rational. The relevance of abstract language with its two lines is understood from a variety of approaches from the different movements it is comprised of. Abstraction has brought about a new understanding of empty space, filled space,
line, shape and color, among many other relevant issues concerning images. From Malevich and the spirituality that resides in his own monochromatic works of Su paintings with their geometric shapes on the wall, Abstraction has been established as a
remarkably essential language in the artistic field.

The Geometría y abstracción exhibition features the participation of Latin American masters of the twentieth century such as Fernando de Szyszlo, Sergio de Camargo, Joaquin Torres Garcia, Carlos Cruz Diez and Jesús Rafael Soto, as well as international artists such as Robert Motherwell, Joan Miró, and Karel Appel. The presence of artists such as Edgar Negret and Eduardo Ramirez
Villamizar, who set the guidelines for the development of Geometric Abstraction and Non-objective art in Colombia, should also be highlighted. In addition, the exhibition displays works of artists who maintain a figurative language but have nonetheless been linked with Abstraction at some point in their careers, as in the case of Vicky Neumann, José Horacio Martinez, David Manzur and Alejandro Obregon.

Geometría y abstracción presents the work of several Colombian, Latin American and European established and emerging artists who have taken the legacy of Lyrical and Geometric Abstraction, and have transformed it into their means of artistic exploration. This exhibition seeks to account for the plurality and the possibilities represented by abstract language in current artistic practices.