Independent 20th Century: Elda Cerrato

The migrations Cerrato experienced throughout her life—from her native Italy to Brazil, then between Argentina and Venezuela—and the avant-garde groups, mystical teachings, and political atmospheres she encountered along the way had a profound influence on her art, merging with her early studies in biochemistry and broader intellectual inquiry to shape a practice defined by a search for heightened consciousness. On view in the booth will be a selection of works created in the 1960s that are demonstrative of her “cosmovision” paintings, examples of which were recently included in the Bienal de São Paulo and La Biennale di Venezia. Cerrato spent the beginning of the decade in Venezuela, where she was associated with a study group of the mystic Gurdjieff and prominent avant-garde groups, before returning to Argentina in 1964 where an encounter with a flying saucer expanded her vision of the universe and other forms of consciousness. Compositions from this period present geometric and biological forms together in bold experiments in color. As the decade went on, her fluid celluloid forms became more grounded in geometric reasoning.

Complementing these works will be selections of her "Maps and Multitudes" works, created the following decade. In the mid-1960s, Cerrato returned to Buenos Aires in response to a military coup, prompting an increased focus in her artistic practice on contemporary life in Latin America. Works from the ’70s depict maps of the Americas alongside images of ordinary people in response to the harsh political realities of Latin America at the time. Now, her geometric forms are windows to views of agricultural landscapes or contain subtly altered maps. In some works, the Americas are positioned upside down, while in another North America is contained in a separate cell from South America. In these works, Cerrato continues the exploration of color evident throughout her practice, expanding her palette to include increasingly bold hues.