Gustavo Díaz: Wild Wind, Subtle Breeze
September 28 – December 7, 2024
![Gustavo Díaz, Not yet titled [triptych], 2019. Cut out paper & pigment, 18 9/16 x 18 9/16 x 2 in. each.](https://img.artlogic.net/w_472,h_472,c_limit/exhibit-e/5ab12bb7a09a72340a8b4568/4d2b8eda3aa0c475c4f24883e5210d62.jpeg)
![Gustavo Díaz, Not yet titled [polyptych, piece 3], 2019. Cut paper & colored pencil, 9 5/8 x 9 5/8 x 2 in.](https://img.artlogic.net/w_472,h_472,c_limit/exhibit-e/5ab12bb7a09a72340a8b4568/3c6981dfb20bf3bb88a0c269ff427e38.jpeg)
GUSTAVO DÍAZ
[1969, Argentina]
Born and raised in Argentina, Gustavo Díaz was awarded a scholarship to work at the Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Industrial at a young age. While studying engineering at the University of Buenos Aires, he began to contemplate the nature of existence on a philosophical level. In the 1990s, he studied painting and sculpture at the Escuela de Bellas Artes Prilidiano Pueyrredón, and piano performance at the Conservatorio Superior de Música "Manuel de Falla." Díaz's multidisciplinary education reflects his curious and restless nature and serves as a foundation from which he continues to investigate contemporary scientific and philosophical thought through artistic research and production.
For twelve years, Díaz committed himself to the teaching of art, motivated by his belief in the artist's responsibility to share a better vision of our reality and our perception of the world through this spiritual path. He co-founded and directed Centro NOUS in the city of Pinamar. During this time, Díaz taught visual arts classes including drawing, painting, photography, and experimental workshops. After years of academic intensity, Díaz refocused his energy on discovering his own artistic language. This period of structural reconsideration gave rise, after years of internal searching, to the subject he has been researching for over ten years: the behavior of complexity.
Díaz presents his findings through intricate, abstract works on paper and installations that map the conceptual connections between disparate, yet related, theories. Through this intense artistic and academic journey, he has examined subjects such as the study of Chaos Theory, in particular issues related to Ilya Prigogine’s concept of Dissipative Structures, for which Prigogine was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1977, as well as René Thom’s Theory of Catastrophes, focusing on the rupture of linearity and the emergence of “the new” through discontinuity processes.
Another subject that he approached in-depth to study the behavior of complex systems is the concept of networks, in particular those of rhizomatic origin. Díaz is interested in hypercomplex connectivity, especially in what relates to the Theory of Systems’ grammatical aspect and particularly grammars that are sensitive to their surroundings.
Díaz spent ten years immersed in this study of philosophical and scientific inquiries in almost complete isolation in the remote town of Cariló, Argentina before relocating to Houston, Texas, where he currently lives and works.
Díaz's work has been shown in numerous selected exhibitions, including Form, Line, Gesture, Writing: Facets of Drawing in South America, Museu Valencià de la Il·lustració i de la Modernitat (MuVIM), Valencia, Spain (2008); Cosmic Dialogues, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), Texas, USA (2015); Latin American Experience, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), Houston, TX, USA (2015); Latin American Experience, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), Texas, USA (2018); and To the Skylark: Selections from the Prints & Drawings Collection in the inaugural installation of the Nancy and Rich Kinder Building, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), Texas, USA (2020).
Díaz's work is included in the permanent collections of Balanz Contemporánea, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Juana Manso 999, Buenos Aires, Argentina; the Fine Arts Museum System of San Francisco (Legion of Honor, de Young Museum, & Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts), San Francisco, California, USA; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), Texas, USA; Noble Energy Collection, Houston, Texas, USA; Proyecto A Collection, Buenos Aires, Argentina; and The Transart Foundation for Art and Anthropology, Houston, TX, USA; The Menil Drawing Institute, Houston, TX, USA, and UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA.
2024
Gustavo Díaz: Wild Wind, Subtle Breeze, Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino, Houston, TX, USA
Out of Thin Air: Emerging Forms, Menil Drawing Institute, Houston, TX, USA
2023
Paperworks: 15 Years of Acquisitions, de Young / Legion of Honor - Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, CA, USA
2022
Gustavo Díaz: Confronting Silence, Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino, Houston, TX, USA
2021
Unframed, Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino, Houston, TX, USA
2020
To the Skylark: Selections from the Prints & Drawings Collection in the inaugural installation of the Nancy and Rich Kinder Building, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), TX, USA
2018
Incompleteness: The Poetics of the Intangible, Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino, Houston, TX, USA
Latin American Experience, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), TX, USA
Common Ground, Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino, Houston, TX, USA
Fuzziness: Thinking on Paper, Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino, Houston, TX, USA
2017
Expanding the Line, Drawing, Video And Sculpture, Cecilia de Torres, Ltd, New York, NY, USA
2016
Typed, Cut, Peeled and Painted: Latin American Made, McClain Gallery, Houston, TX, USA
2015
Cosmic Dialogues, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), TX, USA
Typed, Cut, Peeled and Painted: Latin American Made, The Mission Gallery, Chicago, IL, USA
Latin American Experience, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), TX, USA
2014
Latin American Group Show, The Mission Gallery, Houston, TX, USA
Off The Grid, The Mission Gallery, Chicago, IL, USA
2013
Universe 1, The Mission Gallery, Chicago, IL, USA
Contemporary Abstraction, Cecilia de Torres, Ltd, New York, NY, USA
Latin American Group Show, The Mission Gallery, Houston, TX, USA
2012
Justification a Priori, The Mission Gallery, Chicago, IL, USA
2011
Intricate Calligraphies, Cecilia de Torres, Ltd, New York, NY, USA
Marked Pages III, Sicardi Gallery, Houston, TX, USA
Microwave Eight, Josée Bienvenu Gallery, New York, NY, USA
2010
Ontological Geometries, Municipal Museum of Art, Tandil, Buenos Aires, Argentina
2009
Hypothetical Universes, A-Contemporary Art Project, Buenos Aires, Argentina
2008
Form, Line, Gesture, Writing: Facets of Drawing in South America, Museum of Illustrations and Modernity, Valencia, Spain
OpenSpace, ArteBA, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Horizon-zontis 2.0, Cecilia de Torres, Ltd, New York, NY, USA
2007
The Eye of the Arts, Pinamar, Argentina
Arteclasica Guest Artist, Espacio Oces, Argentina
Contemporary Argentine Art Auction, Galeria Wussmann, Buenos Aires, Argentina
2005
Open Studio, New Horizons, Buenos Aires, Argentina
2004
#9. Proyecto A, Espacio Pinamar, Argentina
2003
Painting Workshop, Museum-House Victor Magariños D, Pinamar, Argentina
2002
Exhibition #1, A-Contemporary Art Project, Buenos Aires, Argentina
2001
City Cultural Center, Manzana de la Rivera, Paraguay
Municipal Museum of Fine Arts, La Plata, Argentina
1999
V Salon Nacional del Mar, Centro Cultural Auditorium, Mar del Plata, Argentina
Group Exhibition, Casal de Catalunya, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Augusta Barreda Collection, Peru
Balanz Capital Collection, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Carlos Quaglio Collection, Argentina
de Young / Legion of Honor - Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, CA, USA
Family Sanchez Cordova Collection, Argentina
Juana Manso 999, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Michael Himes Collection, Indiana, USA
Noble Energy Collection, Houston, TX, USA
Proyecto A Collection, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Renato Catellani Collection, Argentina
Site Specific Installation, Puerto Madero, Buenos Aires, Argentina
The Menil Drawing Institute, Houston, TX, USA
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), TX, USA
The Transart Foundation for Art and Anthropology, Houston, TX, USA
UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA
Zitelli Collection, Argentina
