Antonio Asis: Geometría Libre

OPENING RECEPTION WITH THE ARTIST:

FRIDAY, MAY 9, 6-8 PM Sicardi Gallery is pleased to present Antonio Asis: Geometría Libre, an exhibition of works on paper and objects made by Argentine artist Antonio Asis between the years 1962 and 1970. In these early pieces, the artist uses circles and squares as tools to structure playful and perceptive relationships between colors and forms. His Geometría Libre gouaches on paper feature concentric circles of varying sizes and colors, arranged with a delicate sense of balance and the suggestion of gentle movement. His series of Cubes, made with aluminum, wood, and springs, invite interaction: the slightest touch animates them.

  Asis moved from Buenos Aires to Paris in 1956, where he joined a community of kinetic and optical artists. Among others, he befriended Yaacov Agam, Nicolas Schöffer, Jesús Rafael Soto, Jean Tinguely, and Victor Vasarely. In the 1960s, he began studying the phenomena of light and color, working for a short time on photograms, alongside his paintings and three-dimensional objects.

  Throughout the 1960s, Asis exhibited regularly across Europe, and in 1970, his first solo exhibition was held at Galerie Krebs in Bern, Switzerland. The following year, he co-founded Groupe Position, a collective of Argentine artists in Paris who were dedicated to kinetic experimentation. Since then, he has continued to produce his evocative abstract works from his studio in Paris, and he has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions around the world, including: DYNAMO: A Century of Light and Motion in Art, 1913-2013, Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris (2013); Real/Virtual, Arte Cinético argentino de los años sesenta, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires (2012); Les sites de l’abstraction latino-américaine - Ella Fontanals Cisneros, Haus Konstruktiv, Zürich (2011); Asis/Esmeraldo/Espinosa/Lizarraga, Works on Paper, Sicardi Gallery, Houston, USA (2011); North Looks South: Building the Latin American Art Collection, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, USA (2009); and Los Cinéticos, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain (2007).