Gregorio Vardanega

GREGORIO VARDANEGA
[1923, Italy - 2007, France]

Born in Possagno, Italy, Gregorio Vardanega’s family relocated to Buenos Aires, Argentina when he was three years old. As a young man, he studied in the Escuela de Bellas Artes (1939-1946) in Buenos Aires and graduated as a professor of drawing. In 1946, he participated in the exhibitions organized by the Asociación Arte Concreto-Invención (AACI), and two years later, he traveled with Uruguayan artist Carmelo Arden Quin to Europe. The trip was an important moment in the artist’s formation; a year later, he showed work at the Salon d’Amérique Latine in Paris, and this exhibition put him in contact with prominent figures involved in Paris’s growing kinetic movement, including Denise René, Georges Vantongerloo, Nicolas Pevsner, Sonia Delaunay, Max Bill, and Constantin Brancusi. When he returned to Buenos Aires, he began making his earliest kinetic works, using metal bands and celluloid.

At the center of many of Argentina’s avant-garde artistic circles, Vardanega was a founding member of the Asociación Arte Nuevo in 1955 and, the following year, of Agrupación de "Arte no Figurativo Argentino." In 1957, he was included in the group exhibition 14 Pintores abstractos at the Galería Galatea in Buenos Aires. He received the gold medal in the Exposition Universelle et Internationale de Bruxelles in Brussels, Belgium in 1958 and was included in the IV Bienal de São Paulo, Brazil.

In 1959, Vardanega moved to Paris with Martha Boto and began experimenting with Plexiglas spheres illuminated with moving projections of colored lights. All his subsequent work explored the aesthetic of light, movement, color, and electronic programs. He was especially drawn to the cultural phenomenon of machines that “think.” As did many kinetic artists, Vardanega thought of his work as being in dialogue with architecture and urban planning. He hoped his towers and light works would be accompanied by music and other modes of performative work; he considered many of the sculptures to be prototypes for large-scale public projects.

2022
MOUVEMENT | Hommage à Denise René, Centre d’art contemporain Bonisson, Rognes, Aix-en-Provence, France 
Abstract Art Beyond the Frame, Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA), Long Beach, CA, USA
Light & Darkness, Power Collection, Chau Chak Wing Museum, The University of Sydney, Camperdown, Australia
Sélection 44-22: Forme/Mouvement, Galerie Denise René, Espace Marais, Paris, France

2021
Let There Be Light, Galerie Denise René, Espace Marais, Paris, France

2020
Line into Space, Connecting Currents: Contemporary Art at the Fine Arts Museum Houston in the inaugural installation of the Nancy and Rich Kinder Building, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, (MFAH), TX, USA

2019
Kinetic Masters & Their Legacy, Cecilia De Torres, New York, USA
Group Show, Galerie Denise René, Espace Marais, Paris, France

2018
Latin Americans in Paris, Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, Charlotte, NC, USA
Le dernier âge d’or de la scène française? le nouveau réalisme et l’op art, Galerie Denise René, Rive Gauche, Paris, France
Accrochage d’hiver, Galerie Denise René, Espace Marais, Paris, France

2017
Kinesthesia: Latin American Kinetic Art, 1954–1969, Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Spring, CA
Que de la sculpture, Galerie Denise René, Espace Marais, Paris, France
An Open Mind, Maddox Arts, London, UK

2016
Retrospect: Kinetika 1967, Lower Belvedere, Vienna, Austria
The horizon is the point of no return, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, UK
The Illusive Eye: An International Survey on Kinetic and Op art, El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY, USA

2015
Un tournant | A turning point: Antonio Asis, Martha Boto, Horacio García Rossi, Hugo De Marziani, Gregorio Vardanega, Sicardi Gallery, Houston, TX, USA
Cosmic Dialogues: Selections from the Latin American Art Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), TX, USA
60 ans de Mouvement, 1ères Générations, Galerie Denise René, Paris, France

2013
Dynamo: A Century of Light and Motion in Art, 1913-2013, RMN, Grand Palais, Paris, France
The System of Objects, DESTE Foundation, Centre for Contemporary Art, Athens, Greece
Kinetic, Von Bartha, Basel, Switzerland

2012
Constructed Dialogues: Concrete, Geometric and Kinetic Art from the Latin American Collection, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), TX, USA
Real/Virtual, Arte Cinético Argentino de los Años Sesenta, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires, Argentina

2011
Motor Cocktail: Sound and Movement in Art of the 1960s, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, IL, USA

2009
North Looks South: Building the Latinamerican Art Collection, Upper Brown Pavilion, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), TX, USA
Color into Light: Selections from the MFAH Collection, Upper Brown Pavilion, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), TX, USA

2008
Gregorio Vardanega Martha Boto, Bartha Contemporary, London, UK

2007
Lo[s] Cinético[s], Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain

Centro de Artes Visuales del Instituto Torcuato di Tella, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO), Miami, FL, USA

Fonds National d’Art Contemporain, Paris, France

Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, Australia

Kemper Museum, Kansas City, MO, USA

Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI, USA

Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville, Paris, France

Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France