The New Yorker on Geles Cabrera: Museo Escultórico

In the 1960s, this modernist sculptor opened a museum near her home in Coyocán, Mexico City to exhibit and preserve her own work—a bold move for a woman sidelined in a male-dominated medium (and world). The first solo presentation of Cabrera’s art in New York, Museo Escultórico, is named for her self-founded institution, evoking its backyard garden space with the inclusion of leafy potted plants. […]

Cabrera, now 95, worked primarily with terracotta, volcanic rock, and bronze to carve and mold the sculptures on view in this Edenic atmosphere. Abstracted bodies—usually female, often maternal—are seen seated and supine, in casual but never languid poses. Their sloped and simplified forms have the fluid strength of dancers, appearing alert and engaged. The modestly-sized figures seem to be gathered in friendly conversation in groups scattered throughout the gallery, arranged on platforms of various heights or on concrete-brick plinths. Hanging on the surrounding walls are archival photographs of both the artist’s museum and her public projects. A digitized scrapbook of Cabrera’s press clippings adds historical and personal detail to this lovely portrait of a remarkable life and œuvre.

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