“Ruptura (Rupture) is an in-depth exhibition of work by the São Paulo-based Grupo Ruptura. The exhibition will include more than 50 drawings, paintings, sculptures, objects, and photographs as well as furniture and architectural and landscaping designs. Grupo Ruptura founded the Brazilian concrete art movement, which espoused the creation of universally apprehensible compositions through the use of color and geometry in sync with a modernizing society.
Grupo Ruptura included Geraldo de Barros, Waldemar Cordeiro, Luiz Sacilotto, Lothar Charoux, Kazmer Féjer, Leopoldo Haar and Anatol Wladyslaw—an international group of artists residing in São Paulo in the early 1950s. They sought to affirm the importance of abstract art with the landmark 1952 Ruptura exhibition at the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo and an accompanying manifesto. The manifesto called for a break with naturalistic art and a “renewal of the essential values of visual art (space-time, movement and material)” and presented their core belief: “the work of art does not contain an idea, it is itself an idea.” Later joined by Judith Lauand and Hermelindo Fiaminghi, the artists began to develop an aesthetic language drawing from constructivism and exploring pure colors and rhythms based on alignments, polarities, progressions, and displacements.
The artists’ work was guided by their clear theoretical principles and a practice that engaged and intervened in quotidian life. Ranging from accepted fine art mediums to the objects and structures of the everyday such as furniture and architecture, Grupo Ruptura blurred the boundaries between art and industry at a moment of optimism in which Brazil was yearning for modernization.” — Luciana Brito Galeria
Geraldo de Barros. “Arranjo de Três Formas Semelhantes Dentro de Um Círculo” (gdb 1089), 1953. Enamel on Kelmite, 23.62 x 23.62 in (60 x 60 cm)
Lothar Charoux. Untitled, c. 1950. China ink on paper, 28.34 x 35.82 in. (49,5 x 69,5 cm)
Luiz Sacilotto. Untitled, 1955/1980. Oil on fiberboard, 23.62 x 15.74 in. (60 x 40 cm)
Waldemar Cordeiro. “Idéia Visível”, 1951. Enamel on Kelmite, 13.77 x 13.77 in. (35 x 35 x 3 cm)
Waldemar Cordeiro. Untitled, 1951. Tempera on cardboard on wood, 10.62 x 8.26 in. (27 x 21 cm)
Waldemar Cordeiro. “Residência Ubirajara Keutenedjian”, São Paulo, 1955. Photo print mounted on pvc, 20.86 x 18.70 x 0.78 in. (53 x 47,5 x 2 cm ed 1/17)
Images courtesy Luciana Brito Galeria.