MIAMI, FLA.- The Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation opened Triángulo Loló Soldevilla, Sandu Darie and Carmen Herrera, an exhibition of works by three major figures of Cuban geometric art. Triángulo is on view at the CIFO Art Space (1018 N Miami Avenue, Miami, FL) from December 6, 2017 March 4, 2018.
Triángulo (Triangle) brings together the works of three key figures in the genesis of Cuban abstract art. Loló Soldevilla, Sandu Darie, and Carmen Herrera are three vertices of a story that runs along parallel paths that nevertheless cross: Geometry as a common language for a bold aesthetic renewal. Triángulo presents a confluence of the symbolic values of an essential mythology of space, taken by Loló Soldevilla to their most scientific conclusions; the formal artistic rigor of a new pictorial structuralism as formulated by Sandu Darie; and the wide-ranging intellectual sophistication of a meticulous oeuvre in the unmistakable style of Carmen Herrera.
These 50 works from the Ella Fontanals-Cisneros Collection, all from the 1950s and 1960s, attest to the degree of innovation achieved by Cuban art of the period. These works, executed with dissimilar materials and rejecting imitation, brought about undeniable originality to the international panorama of abstract art.
A partnership between CIFO and Microsoft resulted in the production of Sandu Darie: An Immersive Experience, a section within the exhibition which aims to make important Cuban works of art accessible beyond the constraints of their physical location. The Experience takes public works of art that are permanently located in Cuba and brings them to life in Windows Mixed Reality Headsets and Microsoft HoloLens, including: Daries environmental sculpture Arbol Rojo (1981), located in Palacio de Pioneros Ernesto Guevara, Parque Lenin, Havana; the sculptural mural El Dia y La Noche (1982), located in the hospital vestibule of Hermanos Ameijeiras, Havana; and the sculptural ensemble Construcciones (1977), located in the popular intersection of Cuatro Caminos, Havana. Microsoft has also re-created one of Daries Estructuras Transformables (Untitled, c. 1950s) in HoloLens to showcase the kinetic movements of the piece seen up until now only by curatorial staff due to its delicate nature. Microsofts Sandu Darie: An Immersive Experience is a limited viewing and is only running during Art Basel week December 6th 10th, 2018.
Also included in the exhibition are a number of Sandu Daries transformable spatial structures constructed in Plexiglas, an almost-unknown facet of his work, as well as the projection of Cosmorama, an audiovisual experiment in collaboration with ICAIC, which constituted a key precursor for the later development of video art in Cuba.