WOMEN SHAPING ABSTRACTION

Abstract thought is one of the most fascinating features of our species because it allows us to show certain aspects of reality that are not visible and that thus do not exist in physical space. Women Shaping Abstraction traces the paths blazed and/or continued by a group of pioneering women artists born between 1917 and 1978. The visual explorations of these artists lead us to forms that do not belong to the realm of the concrete, but rather to that of the human imagination in pursuit of the invisible, and at the same time driven by a profound need to express it.

A number of the works on view delve into types of form that are poetic and profoundly subjective, challenging the limitations of verbal language — which is so often constrained by fixed structural rules — through the invention of a kind of writing that is abstract or asemic (i.e., not bound by specific meaning). In a number of cases the creators of these abstract languages, working in various media, found themselves in similar situations that led them to move freely across different languages and cultural territories, culminating in the world of visuality where written letters and legible marks become liberating signs of the self. In other cases, color functions as a constructive element, used by the artists to refer to chapters of social history, to create an architecture of imaginary spaces, and/or to open a door onto unexpected perceptual games that expand our own thought processes via a playfulness that is at the same time liberating.

Ultimately, Women Shaping Abstraction immerses us in the many paths toward abstraction that have sprung from the critical and expressive imaginations of a key group of women artists.

Artists in the exhibition:

Emilia Azcárate, Irma Blank, Marcolina Dipierro, Elsa Gramcko, Sarah Grilo, Louise Nevelson, Anna Maria Maiolino, Mercedes Pardo, Judith Lauand, Fanny Sanín, Mira Schendel, Hilda Saxe and Emma Sies.

(Excerpt from the essay Women Shaping Abstraction by Dr. Adriana Herrera)