Series:

Houston Museum of Fine Arts

3 total works

Cover of Antonio Berni

Antonio Berni

by Marcelo Pacheco and Mari Carmen Ramirez

Published 15 January 2014

Argentinian figurative artist Antonio Berni (1905–1981) is known for his aesthetic originality and for art steeped in social commentary. In the 1950s, he inaugurated a series of works that documented the lives of two fictional characters, Juanito Laguna and Ramona Montiel. Through the stories of Juanito, a denizen of Argentina’s shantytowns, and Ramona, who rises from the working class to the upper echelons of society, Berni addressed topics from industrialization to neocolonialism to economic backwardness and their effects on the population of underdeveloped countries.

Written by leading scholars of Latin American art, this handsome volume presents the first comprehensive survey of the internationally acclaimed Juanito and Ramona series. Richly illustrated with more than 250 color images, the volume brings together nearly two decades of Berni’s monumental, mixed-media reliefs and assemblages, experimental works on paper, and sculptural constructions made of found, everyday objects.




Distributed for the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston


Exhibition Schedule:

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
(11/10/13–01/26/14)

Phoenix Art Museum
(06/28/14–09/21/14)

Cover of Contesting Modernity
This fascinating exploration of Venezuelan Informalism charts the movement’s history from its beginnings in the mid-1950s to its last manifestations in the 1970s. Essays by an esteemed group of scholars discuss the variety, richness, and complexity of Informalism and examine the ways in which Venezuelan artists embraced many of the abstract, gestural tendencies contemporaneously developed in Abstract Expressionism, Tachism, and Art Informel.
 
Providing a thorough and comprehensive overview of this artistically fertile, yet underappreciated, movement, this volume highlights the diverse approaches and the wide range of media employed by Informalism’s key practitioners, including Elsa Gramcko, Alberto Brandt, Francisco Hung, Daniel González, and the collective El Techo de la Ballena. Also featured are stunning works by internationally acclaimed figures who experimented with Informalism, such as Alejandro Otero, Carlos Cruz-Diez, and Jesús Rafael Soto. 

Distributed for the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston


Exhibition Schedule:

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
(10/28/18–01/21/19)

Cover of Modern and Contemporary Masterworks from MALBA - Fundación Costantini

In 2001, Eduardo Costantini, the founder of the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA), began collecting artworks from across Latin America. Today, the renowned Costantini Collection consists of more than two hundred works, encompassing drawings, paintings, sculptures, and objects by seventy-eight artists from various countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

In the spirit of cultural exchange, MALBA and the International Center for the Arts of the Americas (ICAA) at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, are joining together to exhibit fifty of these works, spanning from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day. Among the celebrated artists represented in this beautiful book are Frida Kahlo, Wifredo Lam, Roberto Matta, and Diego Rivera. Also of note are works by Tarsila do Amaral, Rafael Barradas, Antonio Berni, and Alfredo Guttero. An interview by Mari Carmen Ramírez with Costantini sheds light on his philosophy of collecting, and texts by Marcelo Pacheco offer insights into the broad range of modern and contemporary art created in Latin America.



Distributed for the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston


Exhibition Schedule:

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (04/22/12–08/05/12)