Performing Abstraction: Curated by Rina Carvajal

Luciana Brito Galeria is pleased to present Performing Abstraction, an international group exhibition curated by Rina Carvajal.  The exhibition will trace performative dimensions in contemporary abstract art, specific connections to the history of modernism, and new perspectives on the contextualization and reinvention of abstraction in recent multimedia artistic practices.

Abstraction as a visual strategy and language has had a dynamic, multifaceted history, constantly repositioning and reinventing itself in various sociopolitical and aesthetic contexts, and its complexity continues to unfold today.  Performing Abstraction will examine contemporary abstract practices and articulate specific lines of interconnection, juxtaposition, and dialogue across generations, media, and cultures.  The exhibition will feature a variety of approaches to contemporary abstraction: as a conceptual documentary practice that activates history and politics in an ongoing critical engagement with the legacy of modernism; as the movement of abstraction into space, architecture, and a relationship with the body; and as an open-ended engagement with process, materiality, and temporality.

The work of the 14 artists in the exhibition emerges from a range of attitudes towards abstraction, and employs a variety of media, ranging from painting, drawing, and collage to video, film, sound art, and installations.  These works will occupy the interior and exterior spaces of the gallery, modifying its architecture in an exercise that deconstructs and re-constructs the historical legacy of modernity, and renewing the potential of abstract language today.

Artists in the exhibition:

Armando Andrade Tudela (1975, Peru), Trisha Brown (1936, USA), Carlos Bunga (1976, Portugal), Ernst Caramelle (1952, Austria), Hreinn Fridfinnsson (1943, Iceland), Mario Garcia Torres (1975, Mexico), Fernanda Gomes (1960, Brazil), Marine Hugonnier (1969, France), Zilvina Kempinas (1969, Lithuania), David Maljcovic (1973, Croatia), Cildo Meireles (1948, Brazil), Falke Pisano (1978, Holland), Tobias Putrih (1972, Slovenia) and Bojan Sarcevic (1974, Serbia).

Rina Carvajal is an independent curator and critic based in Miami.  From 2007 to 2011, she served as adjunct curator for the Miami Art Museum.  She was a guest curator for the 29th and the 24th Bienal de São Paulo (2010, 1998).  Carvajal has been the director and chief curator of Miami Art Central, director of the Mason Gross Art Galleries of Rutgers University, contemporary art curator at the Museo de Bellas Artes and deputy director of the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, both in Caracas, Venezuela.  She was an Ahmanson curatorial fellow at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, from 1997 to 2000.

Artworks Techniques:

Armando Andrade Tudela
"4 Red Panels", 2011
glass, silicon and adhesive vynil
92,52 x 70,87 x 27,17 in

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Cildo Meireles
“Malhas da Liberdade”, 1976
iron and glass
47,24 x 47,24 in

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Carlos Bunga
Untitled, 2012
cardboard, tape, glue, paint
452,76 x 49,02 x 48,82 in

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Falke Pisano
“Formation of a Crystal”, 2009
wood, paint and fabric. 
posters: printed on Hahnemuhle 
variable dimensions

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David Maljkovic
"Images with their Own Shadows", 2008
16mm film
6 min16 sec

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Hreinn Fridfinnsson 
“Source”, 1992-2012
cardboard and neon sheet
19,69 x 23,62 x 11,81 in

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Zilvinas Kempinas
“Focus”, 2009
fan and magnetic tape
dimensions variable

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Fernanda Gomes
“Untitled”, 2008
paper on canvas
23,62 x 23,62 in

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Trisha Brown
“Untitled (London)”, 2003 
charcoal and oil pastel on paper 
107 x 126 in

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Tobias Putrih
“Side Exit”, 2012
steel, fluorocarbon, lead
118.1 x 76.8 x 98.4 in

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Marine Hugonnier
“Art for Modern Architecture Dilma's Election” polyptych, 2011
silkscreen on paper
21,97 x 12,4 (each)

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Bojan Sarcevic
“Untitled” from the series "Only After Dark, film 2", 2007
16 mm film
2 min 56 sec

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Mario García Torres
“Abandoned and Forgotten Land Works that Are Not Necessarily Meant to Be Seen as Art”, 2004
black & white projection
7 min

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Ernst Caramelle
"Untitled", 2012
Pigment and water on wall
dimensions variable