Pinta New York 2012 announces new expansions in its sixth edition

Among the featured alternative art spaces lie DES PACIO (founded in Costa Rica by Federico Herrero and Clara Astiasarán), and La Loseta (directed in Puerto Rico by Radamés Juni Figueroa). Other Central American artists and Caribbean participants in Pinta New York 2012 are Darío Escobar from Guatemala, Gerard Ellis and José García Cordero from the Dominican Republic, Jean Jacques Ribi from Panama, and Gamaliel Rodriguez from Puerto Rico. Pinta will also include works of Cuban modernity, encompassing a variety of artists that range from René Portocarrero, Amelia Peláez, Wifredo Lam, and Loló Soldevilla to contemporaries such as Consuelo Castañeda, Flavio Garciandía, Roberto Diago, and Abnel Barroso. Through Pinta’s Art Projects, Curator Crivelli Visconti has crafted a list of seemingly diverse artists who not only bring together modern and contemporary art and unite multiple formal languages, but also posit alongside each other the close proximities of art, life, and the borders that define them. The exhibit includes a variety of work that ranges from the renowned master of the Brazilian concrete movement, Willys de Castro (Brazil, 1926-1988) to young, emerging artists such as Ramón Miranda Beltrán (Puerto Rico, 1982), whose work reintroduces Puerto Rico’s political tradition of graphics. The thematic and artistic scope of Crivelli’s “Art Projects” also fuses together an exciting blend of topics and mediums: the collages created by Nicolás Guagnini (Argentina, 1966) carry historical overtones, the works of Carlos Motta (Columbia, 1978) bridge art with an awakened civil society, and Brazilian artists Dias & Riedweg infuse video, ethnography, and performance through diverse artistic practices centered around politics. The selection will not only feature artists like Juan Iribarren (Venezuela, 1956) and Omar Barquet (Mexico, 1979), who build upon art’s geometric heritage from a poetic framework, but it will also put into conversation this geometric heritage with other modes of poetry, as seen in artists like Cabelo (Brazil, 1967) or Luz María Bedoya (Peru, 1969). Along these same lines, a range of galleries take on Latin American conceptual art, showing key artistic figures such as Felipe Ehrenberg, Horacio Zabala, and the visionary Ulises Carrión. From Spain Acknowledgement of modern and contemporary Hispanic artistic creations can be seen in the participation of galleries representing the Spanish geometric abstraction, or, as it is known in Spain: “Normative Art”. Madrid’s José de la Mano Art Gallery features works by the pioneer Manuel Calvo, who was associated with Equipo 57 in Paris - a group that explored the possibilities of a collective and anonymous mode of creation toward the end of the 50’s. De la Mano also features works by José Maria de Labra, an artist who explored early methods of spatial appropriation. Espacio Mínimo exposes a line of work that reflects the perceptive possibilities of space and its constructive variations (MANU MUNIATEGIANDIKOETXEA), the taxonomies (Rene Bergardo), and the formal limits of trends like minimalism and conceptualism through works by Juan Luis Moraza (1986-2010). Guest artist: Lilliana Porter Among these works include those by guest artist Liliana Porter, also represented by Hosfelt Gallery in the show. New York resident and winner of the 1989 Guggenheim Scholarship, Porter harkens back to her work in the 60’s, incorporating a conceptual graphic of the universe with strategies that blur the line between reality and fiction. Porter effectively compromises the paradigms of representation, or the limits between the different types of mediums. Combining and uniting diverse mediums on the canvas, the Argentinean artist undermines the idea of stable territories, continuing to play with and dismantle the fine line between appearance and reality. Museum Program Aware of the importance of the role of museums and institutional collections in the validation and diffusion of art that we propose, the Pinta Museum Acquisition Program was established during the first edition of Pinta in New York, later in London and continues to date. This program, in which Pinta invites museums with an interest in Latin American art to participate, acted as an incentive for the incorporation of works in their collections on the basis of funds provided by Pinta, by the museums themselves, and by patrons. These works are selected by the respective curators from among those exhibited at the show and acquired to form part of the museum’s patrimony. In this way, works for a total value of over a million dollars were acquired through this program, in which some museums like the Museo Tamayo, the MALI, the MALBA, the Pinacoteca of the State of Sao Paulo, the MOMA, the MFA Houston, the MFA Boston, the Harvard Art Museum, El Museo del Barrio, the Centre Pompidou and Tate Modern, among others, have participated. For the sixth edition of Pinta New York in November 2012, we have invited: Bronx Museum of Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico An Artistic Platform Since its inception, Pinta has given incomparable attention to artistic pioneers in the field of abstract geometry, and it has been on the front lines drawing attention to other modes of artistic expression either before or in tandem with their emergence in the rest of the world. This edition will continue to exhibit and promote creators from across the continent, such as Carmelo Arden Quinn, Raúl Lozza, José Pedro Costigliolo, María Freire, Martha Boto, Lygia Clark, Antonio Assis, Waltercio Caldas, Amilcar de Castro, Tomasello, and the more recently known artists Anita Payro and Ana Sacerdote. Pinta’s exhibit will also include new geometric abstractions that go beyond the fundamental markers of this artistic movement, placing abstract geometry in conversation with architecture. Juan Iribarren, Beto de Volder, José Dávila, and Ricardo Alcaide are among the many in this year’s exhibition who give voice to the two sides of this artistic dialogue. The show will also review other contemporary artistic practices, visualizing works of art from an impressive scope of nations that span from Mexico to Argentina. Featured will be works by Uruguayan and Argentinean artists Marco Maggi, María Nöel, Chilean artists Iván Navarro, Pablo Jansana, and Cecilia Vicuña, and Bolivian artist Aruma (Sandra de Berducci). Juan Manuel Echavarría, Jaime Ávila, and Kevin Simón Mancera from Colombia and Juan Carlos Romero and Pancho Quilici from Venezuela will also bring their countries onto the artistic platform. Artists Tomás Ribas and Artur Lescher from Brazil, Fernando Bryce and Sandra Gamarra from Peru, and Mexican artists Dulce Pinzón and Laura Cohen will all additionally find a home in this year’s exhibition. Many other talented artists will also appear in conjunction with those listed above. Pinta New York 2012 will be a privileged place of reflection encompassing the transformation of past dreams of modernity through a myriad of languages in construction.