Sur Moderno: Journeys of Abstraction

Sur moderno traces the ways in which abstraction developed and peaked in midcentury Latin America, radically transforming the story of modern art

A Publishers Weekly 2019 holiday gift guide pick

Sur moderno: Journeys of Abstraction explores the abstract and Concrete art movements that flourished in South America between the mid-1940s and the late 1970s in light of the profound cultural transformations that gave rise to them. Published in conjunction with a major exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Sur moderno features work by artists from Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Venezuela―including Lidy Prati, Tomás Maldonado, Rhod Rothfuss, Lygia Clark, Hélio Oiticica, Jesús Rafael Soto and Alejandro Otero―who advanced the achievements of early-20th-century geometric abstraction and built a new modern vision of the region.

This richly illustrated volume highlights a selection of works gifted to MoMA by Patricia Phelps de Cisneros between 1997 and 2016―a donation that has had a transformative impact on the Museum’s holdings of Latin American art. The Cisneros Modern Collection, which includes paintings, sculptures and works on paper, allows for in-depth study of the art produced in the region at mid-century, enabling the Museum to represent a more comprehensive, plural, and robust narrative of artistic practices and to demonstrate the integral role Latin America played in the development of modern art.

Inés Katzenstein is Curator of Latin American Art and Director of the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Research Institute for the Study of Art from Latin America at The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

María Amalia García is Consulting Curator at Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET)-Universidad Nacional de San Martín.

Irene V. Small is Assistant Professor in the Department of Art & Archaeology, Princeton University.

Mónica Amor is Professor of Global Modern and Contemporary Art at MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art).

Karen Grimson is Curatorial Assistant in the Department of Drawings and Prints, The Museum of Modern Art.