The Art of Grupo Frente on Display in NY

Galerie Lelong is presenting an exhibition of Grupo Frente until August 5, 2017, in New York. It is the first in-depth exhibition in the U.S. of the historic group of artists based in Rio de Janeiro. It includes works by Lygia Clark, Hélio Oiticica, Abraham Palatnik, Lygia Pape, and Ivan Serpa, and sheds light on lesser-known members such as Aluísio Carvão, João José Costa, Rubem Ludolf, César Oiticica, and Décio Vieira. Grupo Frente was at the forefront of artist collectives in the region from 1954-56, approaching art through a rigorous commitment to experimentation and social mission. The founder of Grupo Frente, Ivan Serpa, was an emerging abstract painter and art educator at the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro when he formed the group in 1954. The central mission of the collective was a strict dedication to experimentation with technique and material, maintaining an honest research-based approach. Serpa’s triptych Untitled (1955) is part of a series of textual experiments using typewriter alphabet symbols and demonstrates his interest in serial forms and repetition. Many artists from Grupo Frente later pioneered key visual movements and continue to be leading figures in the art world. The innovative studies of line, form, and color by Lygia Clark, Hélio Oiticica, and Lygia Pape were fundamental to the formation of the groundbreaking Neoconcrete movement (1959-61). Clark’s Modulated Surface (1956) explores the opening of space on a two-dimensional surface through planes separated by a narrow fissure — a concept that the artist would develop in the third dimension under Neoconcretism. Similarly, Oiticica’s gouaches on cardboard demonstrate an intuitive understanding of color and sensitivity to rhythm that he would later translate into physical space. Through her Weavers, Pape proposes an alternative function for woodcuts, then considered a craft tradition; the medium becomes the protagonist in these spatial investigations, as the texture of the woodcut becomes a compositional element. The exhibition features many artists whose works have rarely been shown in New York, such as those by Rubem Ludolf, João José Costa, and Décio Vieira, who is relatively unknown in the U.S. Grupo Frente arrives at a time of increasing attention to Latin American artists and their often-overlooked contributions to 20th-century art. Artists from Grupo Frente who have had recent solo exhibitions in New York include Lygia Clark’s The Abandonment of Art, 1948-1988 at MoMA and Modulated Space at Luhring Augustine, Hélio Oiticica’s Organizing the Delirium at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and Lygia Pape’s The Crowd of Forms at The Met Breuer. An exhibition catalog accompanies Grupo Frente, featuring an introductory text by Luiz Camillo Osorio, Professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), curator, and art critic. More information about the exhibition: www.artrabbit.com/events/grupo-frente