Life in the Abstract
The imaginary of abstract art still reverberates today in various public and private spheres. Its propositions, underlying ideas and technical and experimental inquiries went beyond the boundaries of the visual arts and became as entrenched in everyday life as they are in art.
Life in the Abstract is an exhibition devoted to the Museo Moderno’s collection of abstract art, one of the most important in Argentina. It also ushers in a new dynamic in the way the Museum’s assets are exhibited, which will change over time and put works from the historical collection, as well as recently donated or acquired works, in dialogue with pieces by guest artists in order to draw connections between the first decades of last century and the present day. In this edition, we are proud to present some important works recently added to the Moderno’s collection alongside pieces by guest artists Magdalena Jitrik, Mariela Scafati and Cristina Schiavi.
From its inception, modern abstraction broke with the idea of the ‘open window picture’ that looks at and represents the world. In its place, it set about blurring the borderlines between art and life, and focused its investigations on the creation of new compositional forms and systems that make allowance for the complexity of perception. This led to the highly diverse movements and individual developments represented in the Museo Moderno’s collection, which includes important works created in the period between the 1940s and 1970s.
In different conceptual cores, this exhibition traces abstract art’s interest in the construction of space, its relationship to the human body, the dialogue with scientific research, the search for spirituality and the fruitful exchange with design, decoration and domestic objects.
Life in the Abstract points to how the powerful utopian gaze made abstraction a legacy to which contemporary Argentinian art constantly returns in order to produce images that interrogate the present.