Waldemar Cordeiro. Konstellationen. Von Konkreter Kunst zur Computerkunst.
In the organizer's words:
With the exhibition "Constellations. From Concrete Art to Computer Art", the ZKM is showing the first retrospective of the Brazilian artist, theorist and designer Waldemar Cordeiro (1925-73) in Germany. As an influential pioneer of Concrete Art, Cordeiro played a decisive role in the history of Brazilian art in the 20th century. His diverse work ranges from abstract and geometric art to socially engaged and computer-generated art.
In the exhibition at the ZKM, Waldemar Cordeiro's work is presented in four phases: The first phase, the "Concretismo" (Concrete Art) of the late 1940s and 1950s, is characterized by precise lines and the abstract arrangement of coloured surfaces. With "Geometria Intuitiva" (Intuitive Geometry), Cordeiro turned away from the pursuit of rational form, began to incorporate organic shapes, bright tropical colors and chance, and increasingly turned his attention to the public. With "Popcreto" - a mixture of Pop Art and Concrete Art - he reacted to the new realism movement in art against the backdrop of the military coup in Brazil in 1964. "Arteônica", a neologism coined by Cordeiro, refers to the fourth phase in which he combined "arte" (art) and "electrônica" (electronics) in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
In the 1960s, Waldemar Cordeiro was one of the first artists in South America to explore the then still new computer technology and was in close contact with pioneers and theorists of computer art. From 1968 onwards, Cordeiro, together with the physicist Giorgio Moscati (*1934), created works that are considered to be the first computer-generated artworks in Latin America. Through his participation in various international exhibitions such as "Tendencies 4. Computers and Visual Research" (1969) in Zagreb (Croatia, formerly Yugoslavia) and the exhibitions he organized in São Paulo, "Computer Plotter Art" (1970) and "Arteônica" (1971), Cordeiro played a decisive role in the spread of computer art, which he saw as a logical development of Concrete Art. Cordeiro was thus one of the few artists worldwide who embodied the often emphasized connection between Concrete Art and Digital Art in their own biography.
The exhibition at the ZKM is based on the retrospective "Waldemar Cordeiro. A Singular Constellation", which was shown at The Mayor Gallery in London in 2024. In Karlsruhe, it will be supplemented by photographs, letters and printed matter from the ZKM's collection and archives, which document Cordeiro's links with the international computer art movement.
This content has been machine translated.Location
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