Fragmento de
Historical Contingency
Geometric Abstraction in Contemporary Venezuelan Art

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“At the beginning of her career, Magdalena Fernández (born 1964) used audiovisual technology (fiber optics and sound) to express the essential structure of natural forms. Her work, which reveals very clear geometric influences, then moved on to deconstruct and manipulate models taken from the modernist avant-garde. Fernández thus seeks to reinterpret these works and challenge the canon from the perspective of its own visual space [FIG. 8]. She uses video to add sound and movement to works that were originally created using an optical approach. Whereas modernist artists avoided any portrayal of natural elements by expressing them in abstract form (as Fernández did in her early years), she now adds natural components that create a sort of tropicalization of Latín American abstract art. In works such as 2iPM009 (PLATE 12.1-.6), for example, the song of a macaw, the chirping of birds, the sounds of daybreak in the tropics or a thunderstorm experienced out of doors are playful, ironic mechanisms that Fernández uses to subvert the perfect order imposed by abstraction.

One goal of sorne contemporary art-the art selected for this exhibition, for example-is to reveal the hypocrisies underscoring the notion of the purity and singularity of historical utopías and to challenge and disrupt them with criticism. Contingent Beauty offers new narratives and recasts more traditional ideas of modernism and its legacy by highlighting artists who uncover beauty in unexpected places, particularly the beauty that geometric abstraction essentially banished from representational art.”

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Tahía Rivero
Para la exposición
Contingent Beauty
Contemporary Art from Latin America
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
2015