Concrete Invention - Reflections on Geometric Abstraction from Latin America and Its Legacy

The profile of Latin American abstract art in North America and Europe has dramatically increased over the past decade or so, thanks in large part to the activities of the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection. However, this is the first publication to specifically address the Concrete and Neoconcrete movements, spanning the 1930s through to the 1970s, and focusing on centers of activity throughout Latin America, in cities such as Montevideo, Buenos Aires, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Caracas. In these decades, artists such as Lygia Clark, Hélio Oiticica, Lygia Pape, Jesús Soto, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Judith Lauand, Geraldo de Barros, Hermelindo Fiaminghi, Luiz Sacilotto, Willys de Castro and Ferreira Gullar infused European Concrete art with fresh energy and warmth, extending it into the realms of performance and interactive sculpture (as seen in the works of Clark, Pape and Oiticica). The book organizes this rich range of work into five thematic sections: “Geometry,” “Illusion,” “Dialogue,” “Vibration” and “Universalism.” Accompanying an exhibition at the Reina Sofía, Concrete Invention also includes texts by several of the artists; an essay by sound artist and scholar Steve Roden; a questionnaire on the legacy of these movements answered by Luis Camnitzer, Jesús Carillo, Sofia Hernández Chong Cuy and Ana Longoni; and a series of geometric-abstract gatefolds designed for the catalogue by José León Cerrillo.