Constellations

In the context of an increasing interest in Geometric Abstraction, the Art Museum of the Americas (AMA) offers with the exhibition entitled Constellations a panoramic history of the development of this artistic current established in Latin America throughout the Twentieth Century. The various forms and practices of this dynamic across the continent are contained in the AMA's permanent collection and in the collection of AMA's sponsor, the Organization of American States.

Based on the work by Uruguayan constructivist artist Joaquín Torres-García, a pioneer of abstraction in South America, Constellations presents the evolution of the geometric impulse through four complementary movements. These interconnected "constellations," namely Americas Constructivists, Figurative Geometry, Constructive Geometries, and Moving Geometry, explore the visual and ideological versatility of abstraction, beginning in the 1930s and through the 1950s and 1960s.

Representatives of the Torres-García studio, the Argentinean movement known as MADI, Colombian Constructivism, Cuban Concretism, and Venezuelan Kinetic Art, the works that are part of the exhibition Constellations suggest the motivations behind the Latin American abstractionist vanguard concerning optical effects, technologies, political activism, dialog and exchange and, most importantly, the concept of geometry as a structural and social metaphor.

Abigail McEwen, Assistant Professor of Latin American art at the University of Maryland, was in charge of the curatorship. The exhibition consists of works by 42 artists, including: Carlos Cruz-Diez (Venezuela), Edgar Negret (Colombia), Rogelio Polesello (Argentina), Joaquín Torres-García (Uruguay), Eduardo Ramírez-Villamizar (Colombia), among others.