Large Format. Painting and Abstraction

About

Durban Segnini Gallery presents within the framework of the celebrations of Art Basel Miami Beach 2018 an extensive tour through the Latin American abstract painting of the last fifty years: “Large Format. Painting & Abstraction ” includes more than a dozen large-scale pictorial works, created by thirteen internationally renowned artists representing Argentina, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela, countries where the language of abstraction is already an artistic tradition and an essential part of its modern identity.
Participating artists are: Antonio Seguí, César Paternosto, Víctor Chab and Beto de Volder (Argentina); Flavio Garciandía (Cuba); Carlos Rojas and Eduardo Ramírez Villamizar (Colombia); Manuel Felguérez (Mexico); Fernando De Szyszlo (Peru); Jason Galarraga, Juvenal Ravelo, Luisa Richter and Mateo Manaure (Venezuela).
A list of authors that includes great masters of Latin American abstract painting, as well as younger creators who are reinterpreting, in a diverse and novel way, the legacy of their predecessors.

In “Large Format. Painting & Abstraction“, the abstract painting in its dimensionality is shown to the spectator with a broad will in the domain of materials; the techniques employed and their specificity show a diversity in the symbolic use of these. A diversity that includes, on one hand, the technique and materials most used in the modern stage: oil painting on canvas. Here highlights, for example, the works of Manaure, Garciandía, Felguérez or Galarraga. On the other, more contemporary techniques incorporated into the pictorial practices of abstraction, such as for example acrylic on canvas, that compared to oil, accelerated the drying of pictorial surfaces. Its effect is remarkable in the expressive gestures of Richter, Szyszlo or Seguí with a unique piece that remains some figuration. A combination of college, oil and other mixtures are otherwise present in the works of Chab and Paternosto. “Large Format. Painting & Abstraction “also contemplates works, whose mixtures combine these techniques with materials taken from current production, such as MDF (industrial board with medium density) or reflective elements and metals, among others. The sophisticated laminations that cover the works of Ravelo, or the zigzagging images of De Volder, teach great ingenuity in the use of these materials.

“Large Format. Painting & Abstraction ” offers a privileged opportunity to discover the variety of forms and contents that have distinguished the landscape of Latin American Abstraction in the last five decades; so that the viewer experiences the richness of his textures and pictorial records. From the Informalist and surreal Abstraction of  Felguérez, Garciandía or Chab, going through the Geometrism of Manaure and Villamizar, the Optics of Ravelo to the most lyrical and expressionist abstraction of Richter and Szyszlo. The exhibition brings together all these abstractions, offering a broad view on the understanding of their expressions in the context of contemporary visual arts in Latin America.