Dialogues

Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino is pleased to present the exhibition Dialogues, on view from July 15 to September 26, 2020. This exhibition underscores the gallery’s core program since the 1990s: the search for challenging links between recognized modernists and mid-career artists.

Pioneers of the Op Art and Kinetic Art movement, Jesús Rafael Soto and Francisco Sobrino explored the viewer's relationship to the art object, activating the space around the work through color and form. Carlos Cruz-Diez used the science of color theory to immerse the viewer in the experience of pure color. These and other artists of this generation, including Antonio Asis, Mercedes Pardo, and Sérvulo Esmeraldo, were part of a vibrant expatriate community in Paris during the 1960s and 1970s. Exploring color, form, and space in two and three dimensions, they often invited the viewer to engage in a dynamic relationship with reflection and constantly shifting forms, as is evidenced in Sobrino's Transformation Instable (1971/2013). Iole de Freitas, a native of Brazil who spent eight years in Italy, uses ordinary materials in sculptures that incorporate the elements of space and time.

León Ferrari spent his career between Argentina and Brazil, where he was actively involved in both the formal artistic concerns and the politics of his generation during the Argentine dictatorship.

In dialogue with these Modern masters, contemporary artists working today in Brazil, Mexico, and Uruguay continue the exploration of abstraction through works with an underlying formal structure, but ground their artistic production more in the conceptual than the perceptual realm. Ana Maria Tavares uses industrial materials to explore the emotional and psychological impact on the transformation of Latin American cities by Modern architecture and design in the mid 1990s. Thomas Glassford's Stela series speaks to his investigation of consumerism through the lens of a ubiquitous and utilitarian object: the broomstick. While Gabriel de la Mora also works with found objects, his investigations center around exploring the conceptual meaning of art and the liminal space between drawing, painting, and sculpture. Marco Maggi invites the viewer to slow down and look closely, a notion that is highly counter-cultural in the age of technology.

July 15 - September 26, 2020

Press Release