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DATES: April 24 - May 19 2007 RECEPTION:
Thursday 26 5P-7:30P/ |
ADDRESS: 511 West 25 Street, Suite 605, NYC HOURS: Tuesday - Saturday. 12 - 6 PM |
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Argentina, that fantastic land far to the south of everything, is undoubtedly the most culturally diverse and sophisticated country in the hemisphere. Peopled by waves of immigrants with the fortitude, innate sense of social justice and passion for speaking out that has carried it through more than its shares of crises, Argentina's artists too, at their best, have spoken through their work, with moral clarity, force and beauty. Fuerza Argentinos is the work of four of the best of these forces. All portenos of varied origins, fiercely independent in spirit and vision, uncompromisingly aware and artistically articulate, honed by experiment and experience, Dowek, Allers, Minujin and van der Grijn have spent their artistic lifetimes reminding us of man's obligation to man. Rosemary Allers' frankly sexual and aggressive women, demanding their due from men, often unseen but whose presence is always near, needed and threatening, reminds one of her German forbears of the Brechtian 1920's and 30's. Her solo shows in Germany, Holland, Italy and Japan, as well as South America signal the strength and universality of her feminist vision. If poverty and pain can ever be beautiful, Diana Dowek's lifelong depiction of those without anything but hope for a better future are the mirror: her homeless, her cartoneros, her imprisoned ones, give us not only universal sadness, but belief somehow in tomorrow, here, in Palestine, Darfur, the world. Artist of the year in 2004, winner of virtually every major prize in 2005, Dowek steadfastly reminds us, nunca mas. Marta Minujin, inheritor of the Tolstoyian grandness of vision and love of all people, confidant of Warhol, activist since the 60's, through deliberate repetition and beautiful excess, inexplicably amplifies the emptiness of materiality. The public face of Art in Argentina, her retrospective in the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires was aptly called "The Art of Life." The peripatetic Erik Adriaan van der Grijn, abstract expressionist and here, curator, has finally settled, he says, in this land of contradictions, after years of documenting and reinventing life's minor and major horrors and wonders in Europe and the United States. A Dutchman by birth, a wanderer by choice and now an Argentine by passion, whose works are owned by and shown in many museums and institutions worldwide, his stark and famous yellow and black palette, on occasion heightened by celestial blue and blood red, are, as he says, warnings to pay attention, to bear witness. Pascal, Buenos Aires, 2007 For more information, or visuals, contact Carl Eckhoff at SOHO20 Chelsea by e-mail: soho20@verizon.net or by phone: (212) 367- 8994. |
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