Waltercio Caldas

The Blanton Museum of Art of the University of Texas at Austin and the Fundação Iberê Camargo of Porto Alegre, Brazil, have joined forces to organize the first retrospective survey of the work of Waltercio Caldas, curated by Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro.

Featuring more than 75 artworks—including several never before seen in public— the exhibition, titled The Nearest Art: A Survey of Works by Waltercio Caldas, will explore the highlights of the artist's production since the 1960s to today, and will remain open to the public through January 12, 2014.

Waltercio Caldas' work challenges traditional modes of interpretation and classification. Using materials that go from the most refined to the most commonplace, his sculptures, installations, and drawings examine the physical qualities of objects and of space, frequently confounding the act of looking on the part of its viewers. The artist defies his practice as sculpting the distance between objects, reversing the conventional notion of sculpture as a dense, self-contained volume.

The show will be accompanied by a catalog, the first illustrated English-language publication on Caldas' work, featuring a complete investigation of the artist's explorations in his four-decade career, his influences, and his impact. The book, co-published by the Blanton Museum of Art and University of Texas Press, includes illuminating essays by renowned critics Richard Shiff and Robert Storr, as well as by the show's curator.