Embodied Abstraction

Highlighting three significant young artists living and working in New York, this exhibition demonstrated the diverse manner in which artists were extending the formal, aesthetic concerns of modernism, while also investigating contemporary, cultural, and personal concerns.

The show included works by Laura Anderson, Linda Matalón, and Ricardo Mazal who were equally influenced by Expressionism, Minimalism, and Post-Minimalism. Their work shared an interest in the limits of irony referring often to the body and the body’s scale, forms, themes, and operations.

In addition, the exhibition documented the vitality of a significant countercurrent in contemporary art by Latin American and Latino artists -- abstraction-- which had been neglected in recent survey exhibitions of these artists. In a sense, these artists were grappling with that most pertinent of questions at the turn of the milennium: "What now?"

The exhibition curator was Joseph R. Wolin, Associate Curator of the Americas Society Art Gallery at the time and a specialist in contemporary art.

An exhibition catalogue is available.

^{Embodied Abstraction was made possible by the generous contributions of Ramis Barquet, Patricia Phelps Cisneros, and Agnes Gund. Additional support was provided by the Mexican Cultural Institute, New York.}