Gregorio Vardanega - Artists - Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino

Biography

GREGORIO VARDANEGA (1923 - 2007, Italy/France)

Born in Possagno Italy, Gregorio Vardanega’s family relocated to Buenos Aires when he was three years old. As a young man, he studied in the Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes (1939-1946) in Buenos Aires, and graduated as professor of drawing. In 1946, he participated in the exhibitions organized by the Asociación Arte Concreto-Invención, and two years later, he traveled with 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 de Amérique latine in Paris, and this exhibition put him in contact with the important 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 Artistas No Figurativos Argentinos (ANFA). In 1957, he was included in the group exhibition 14 Pintores abstractos at the Galatea gallery in Buenos Aires. He received the gold medal in the International Exposition in Brussels in 1957, and was included in the IV São Paulo Bienal.

In 1959, Vardanega moved to Paris with Martha Boto, and began experimenting with Plexiglas spheres, illuminated with moving projections of colored lights. All of his subsequent work explored the aesthetic of light, movement, color, and electronic programs. He was especially drawn to the cultural phenomena of machines that “think.” As did many kinetic artists, Vardanega thought of his work as 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. His first major exhibition in Paris, Chromocinétisme (1964), was a two-person show with Boto at the Maison des Beaux-Arts. His work has subsequently been included in numerous important surveys of kinetic art.

Vardanega died in Paris in 2007.

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SELECTED SOLO & GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2017	Kinesthesia: Latin American Kinetic Art, 1954–1969 - Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Spring, CA
	An Open Mind, Maddox Arts, London, UK
2015	Un tournant \| A turning point: Antonio Asis, Martha Boto, Horacio García Rossi, Hugo De Marziani, Gregorio Vardanega, Sicardi Gallery, Houston, 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
2012	Constructed Dialogues: Concrete, Geometric and Kinetic Art from the Latin American Collection, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), Houston, TX, USA
	Real/Virtual, Arte Cinético Argentino de los Años Sesenta, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires, Argentina
2009	North Looks South: Building the Latinamerican Art Collection, Upper Brown Pavilion, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), Houston, TX, USA
	Color into Light: Selections from the MFAH Collection, Upper Brown Pavilion, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), Houston, TX, USA
2007	Lo[s] Cinético[s], Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain
2006	Contact: Le cyber-cosmos de Boto et Vardanega, Sicardi Gallery, Houston, TX, USA
	Appel Design, Berlin, Germany
	Kinetische Kunst: Ver-rückte Ansichten, Städtisches Museum Gelsenkirchen, Germany
	Light and Shadow Galerie von Bartha, Basel, Switzerland
2005	Lichtkunst aus Kunstlicht, ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany
	Escultura- Objeto, Museo de Arte Moderno Buenos Aires (MAMBA), Buenos Aires, Argentina
	L’Œil moteur- Art optique et cinétique, 1950-1975, Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain (MAMCS), Strasbourg, France
2004	Moving Parts: Forms of the Kinetic, Museum Tinguely, Basel, Switzerland; Kunsthaus, Graz, Austria
2003	Arte Abstracto, Argentino Fundación PROA, Buenos Aires, Argentina
2001	Abstract Art from the Rio de la Plata: Buenos Aires and Montevideo, Americas Society, New York, NY, USA
	Denise René: L’intrépide, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
2000	Fluorescence, Galerie Denise René - Rive Gauche, Paris; Espace Marais, Paris

1999	Art Construit, Art Cinétique d’Amérique Latine, Galerie Denise René, Paris, France
1992	L’Art en Mouvement, Fondation Maeght, Saint-Paul de Vence, France
1984	Carte blanche à Denise René, Paris Art Center, France
	Face à la Machine, Maison de l’Amérique Latine, Paris, France
1983	Electra, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France
1982	L’Amérique Latine à Paris, Grand-Palais, Paris, France
1976	Centre d’action culturelle “Les Gémeaux,” Sceaux, France
1969	Galerie Denise René, Paris, France
1968	Art Cinétique, Maison de la Culture, Grenoble, France
	Denise René à Londres, Redfern Gallery, London, UK
1967	Lumière et Mouvement, Art Cinétique à Paris, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France
	Structures, Lumière et Mouvement, Galerie Denise René, Paris, France
	Light Motion Space, Walker Arts Center, Minneapolis, MN, USA; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY, USA
1965	Sigma I, Galerie des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux, France
	Argentina en el mundo. Artes visuales 2, Centro de Artes Visuales del Instituto Torcuato Di Tella, Buenos Aires, Argentina
1964	Maison des Beaux-Arts, C.R.O.U.S., Paris, France
	Mouvement 2, Galerie Denise René, Paris, France
	Hanover Gallery, London, UK
	Lumière, Mouvement et Optique, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Belgium
1963	L’Art Latino-américain, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France
1962	Trente Argentins de la Nouvelle Génération, Galerie Creuze, Paris, France
	Musée du Havre, Paris, France
1959	Galería H, Buenos Aires, Argentina
1958	L’Art visuel en Argentine, Exposition universelle et internationale, Brussels World Fair, Brussels, Belgium (Gold Medal)
1957	IV Bienal de São Paulo, Brazil
1956	Galería Estímulo, Buenos Aires, Argentina
1955	Galería Galatea, Buenos Aires, Argentina