Recovering Beauty

Blanton Museum of Art, Austin

The 1990s in Buenos Aires. This exhibition is the first North American presentation of art from this pivotal decade in Argentina. After years of persecution and violence during the 'dirty war' dictatorship of General Jorge Rafael Videla, the 1990s provided a sense of social liberation and freedom of expression in the country. Artists responded with works that celebrated a departure from the heavy political content of their predecessors.

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This exhibition is the first North American presentation of art from this pivotal decade in Argentina. After years of persecution and violence during the “dirty war” dictatorship of General Jorge Rafael Videla, the 1990s provided a sense of social liberation and freedom of expression in the country. Artists responded with works that celebrated life and the concepts of beauty, color, and personal psychology—a departure from the heavy political content of their predecessors.

At the center of this creative period was the Centro Cultural Rojas (CCR), which opened as an exhibition space in 1989 as part of the University of Buenos Aires. The artists of “el Rojas,” including Feliciano Centurión, Sebastián Gordin, Jorge Gumier Mier, Miguel Harte, Graciela Hasper, Benito Laren, Marcelo Pombo, Cristina Schiavi, and Omar Schiliro, infused their work with an ornamental, romantic, and even kitsch aesthetic, reflecting Argentina’s new globalization. This return to, or “recovery” of beauty is illuminated in seventy artworks and is further examined in a fully illustrated catalog accompanying this exhibition.

Support for the exhibition is provided by Judy and Charles Tate, the Susan Vaughan Foundation, and by a grant from Houston Endowment Inc. in honor of Melissa Jones for the presentation of contemporary art at The Blanton. The accompanying catalog is made possible by Michael Chesser.

The Blanton Museum of Art at The University of Texas at Austin, housed in a two building complex, is one of the foremost university art museums in the country. The museum’s collection is the largest in Central Texas, comprising over 17,000 works of art in a variety of mediums, with particular depth in Western European art from the fourteenth through twentieth centuries and modern and contemporary art of the Americas.

For further information or images please contact:
Kathleen Brady Stimpert/ Brady Dyer
(512) 475-6784 / (512) 232-5171
kathleen.bradystimpert@blantonmuseum.org/ brady.dyer@blantonmuseum.org

Image: Graciela Hasper, Untitled, 1999
Acrylic on canvas 68 7/8 x 68 7/8 in.
Collection of Magdalena Cordero

Opening February 20, 2011

Blanton Museum of Art
intersection of Martin Luther King and Congress Avenue
open Tuesday though Friday from 10 - 5, Saturday from 11-5, and Sunday from 1-5.
Thursdays are free admission days and every third Thursday the museum is open until 9 pm.
Admission Prices: Adults $9, Kids 12 and under FREE, Seniors (65+) $7, Youth/College Students (13-25) $5.
Admission is free to members, all current UT ID-holders

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Blanton Museum of Art

IN ARCHIVIO [19]

Eva Hesse and Sol LeWitt
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