The exhibition
The Catalog
Educational Activities / Audio-guide
Attraction. Scene. Energy. Internationalism. Destination. Artistic production in the 1960s looked to New York. The center for the development of visual arts during the second half of the 20th century, the American city attracted many artists whose interests had flowed through Europe - birthplace of the historic avant-gardes - and went to live in the Big Apple, epicenter of change and experimentation.
Starting July 24 and lasting until September 30, Fundación Proa presents Imán: Nueva York, a historic exhibition curated by Rodrigo Alonso that brings together the productions of prominent local artists. Pieces, projects, documents, books and photographs reconstruct a period of crucial interchanges for the visual consciousness of that time, in which many Argentine artists traveled to New York while Buenos Aires also entertained curators and artists.
In an interview published in the exhibition catalog, Luis Felipe Noé comments: “When I traveled with Jorge de la Vega to France, I realized that we here were talking about Paris and in Paris they were talking about New York.”
Imán: Nueva York explores the projects and works completed in Buenos Aires that reached the level of significant international presence, and presents an overview to reflect on the role of institutions at a moment in which a new form of producing, generating and disseminating contemporary art was being born.
The Guggenheim Fellowships, the Instituto Di Tella, the Córdoba Bienales Americanas de Arte, the Buenos Aires Museo de Arte Moderno, the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes and the Bonino Gallery in New York are the institutions that lead this interchange. This exhibition examines the 60s and presents the transformation of local art from lyrical to geometric abstraction, and from there to conceptual art, reconsidering the dialogue with the hegemonic centers.
The exhibition’s title, Imán: Nueva York, alludes to the legendary 1964 exhibition in New York’s Bonino Gallery, which reflected the magnetic draw of the city for many Latin American artists.
The artists on display are Marcelo Bonevardi, Ary Brizzi, Delia Cancela/Pablo Mesejean, Eduardo Costa, Jaime Davidovich, Jorge de la Vega, José Antonio Fernández Muro, Grupo Frontera, Nicolás García Uriburu, Sarah Grilo, Leandro Katz, Kenneth Kemble, David Lamelas, Gabriel Messil, Eduardo Mac Entyre, María Martorell, Fernando Maza, Marta Minujín, Honorio Morales, Luis Felipe Noé, César Paternosto, Rogelio Polesello, Alejandro Puente, Liliana Porter, Eduardo Rodríguez, Kazuya Sakai, Carlos Silva, Juan Stoppani, Osvaldo Romberg, Miguel Angel Vidal and Luis Wells.
An intense program of parallel activities, including the presence of artists and critics, and the inclusion of an invaluable catalog ensure the role of Imán: Nueva York as an exhibition that is historic in its reflective value and contribution to the international discussion on the decade of the 60s.
Fundación Proa appreciates the contribution of works and documents from public and private institutions, as well as collectors and documentation centers. To the artists, for their generous dialogue which enabled the reconstruction of history’s path, and to Tenaris – Organización Techint for their ongoing support.
The publication Imán: Nueva York reconstructs the scene of the 60s as lived by a group of Argentine artists who, in keeping with the artistic world of the time, traveled, studied and created works in the Big Apple. The catalog, overseen by the curator Rodrigo Alonso, exhibits this history through a body of reproductions of works, photographs from the period and portraits, in dialogue with a historical context and current thought, constituting a document of reflection on the artistic scene.
The theoretical texts chosen are: The Fall of Paris by Harold Rosenberg, who in 1940 anticipated the decline of the French capital as the hegemonic center of contemporary art, and which takes on a special relevance now for its prescient diagnosis of the changing scene; in Success: How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art from Paris, Serge Guilbaut explains the socio-economic and political factors that accompanied the birth of New York as the epicenter of international art; and Andrea Giunta, in The “Triumph” of Argentine Painting. Internationalist Nationalism in the Sixties, enriches the catalog with a reflection on the local context, showing how some Argentine institutions contributed to this bilateral interchange.
A body of works documents exhibition catalogs of the time and texts by key artists: Jorge Romero Brest, Hugo Parpagnoli, Thomas Messer, Basilio Uribe, Luis Felipe Noé and Alejandro Puente, among others.
From the voice and memory of the artists themselves, the Interviews section publishes Rodrigo Alonso’s recent talks with each of the artists, recounting the successes and failures of the period.
The more than 300 page catalog has a large body of reproductions, including photographs and other works.
The Educational Department has designed a special program for the exhibition Imán: Nueva York, with the permanent presence of educators in the exhibition halls, guided tours for the general public and activities for students and teachers, with the objective to reflect on the artists and events of the 60s.
Download the audio-guide specially prepared for the exhibition Imán: Nueva York.
Every day at 5:00 p.m. there are guided tours for the general public, and on Saturdays and Sundays there is also a visit at 3:00 p.m.
On Student Tuesdays, materials enabling further study of the concepts developed in the exhibition are made available to the public at the Proa Bookstore. Bibliographic texts, catalogs, letters and documentation form the backbone of the research conducted by the curator Rodrigo Alonso for the exhibition. The ability to access this information also offers the possibility for reflection on the path blazed by the curator and the point of view he chose to take.
The School Program provides students and teachers an opportunity to get to know the exhibition. The proposed visits are specially designed for different levels of education (pre-, primary, secondary, tertiary and university). Materials are also made available both before and after the visit to enable further exercises in the classroom.
For more information: educacion@proa.org / [54-11] 4104 1005