Caetano de Almeida Exhibition
Eleven Rivington
This event has ended.
Eleven Rivington presents a two-venue show by Sao Paulo-based Brazilian artist Caetano de Almeida. Presented in the exhibition will be recent large-scale watercolors on paper and paintings featuring the artist’s optically charged and chromatic compositions. A recent development within the artist’s signature of highly patterned work is the introduction and deployment of circular cutouts and holes within the picture frame, an elaboration of an interest in active geometry that further connects his practice to the rich history of Brazilian geometric and Neo-Concrete art.
“I try to act in the most mechanical way…the lines of these paintings are all constructed based on a procedure of continuous repetition.” (Caetano de Almeida, 2012)
Even more than in his previous work, shown at the gallery in 2009 and 2011, the watercolors and canvases in this exhibition highlight the artist’s use of movement and action: each line and curve is measured, performed, repeated and recorded as an edge, a mark or stripe. The choreography is undermined by de Almeida’s intuitive use of color (this time in a more controlled palette offset by bright white), and balance is thrown off by jumping between the use of acrylic paint and more porous watercolors. There is a dynamic instability, even dichotomy, in the new works, including the paintings ‘Agudos’ and ‘Centripeta’ (all works 2013), whose graduated circular holes point towards the limitation of the picture plane and object itself, and invoking a host of different associations and references, from Lygia Clark and Lucio Fontana to James Turrell. The deliberate cutouts in De Almeida’s recent work pushes towards a new plurality in his finely tuned geometry, rendering a deeply personal practice with encounters that evidence a more open ended engagement.
Caetano de Almeida was born in Campinhas, Brazil and currently lives and works in Sao Paulo. He has exhibited in Latin America and Europe for 25 years and has been the subject of solo museum exhibitions at Pinacoteca do Estado, Sao Paulo (2007); Museo de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro (2007); and Museo de Arte Moderna, Sao Paulo (2003). Eleven Rivington presented his US debut in 2009 and this is his third solo exhibition with the gallery.
Media
Schedule
from September 05, 2013 to October 13, 2013
Opening Reception on 2013-09-08 from 18:00 to 20:00