Guillermo Kuitca

This exhibition presents some two hundred works by Latin American artists that have been added to the collection over the past ten years. The works on view embrace several artistic mediums and comprises a variety of styles, from early modernism and geometric abstraction to informalism and conceptual art. New Perspectives in Latin American Art surveys the wide range of these recent acquisitions and features both historical and contemporary Latin American artists, including Joaquín Torres-García, Alejandro Otero, Hélio Oiticica, Lygia Clark, Lygia Pape, Carmen Herrera, Geraldo de Barros, Leo Matiz, Willys de Castro, León Ferrari, Gego, Gerd Leufert, Mira Schendel, Waltercio Caldas, Anna Maria Maiolino, Victor Grippo, Guillermo Kuitca, Arturo Herrera, Gabriel Orozco, Carlos Garaicoa, and Santiago Cucullu.

November 25, 2006 – March 18, 2007
Daros Exhibitions, Zurich

Guillermo Kuitca ranks among the most versatile contemporary artists in Latin America. At the upcoming Venice Biennale during the summer of 2007, the artist will be representing Argentina. This South American country will present itself at the Ateneo Veneto.

Guillermo Kuitca is currently shown in Zurich by Daros-Latinamerica – one of the world’s largest private collections devoted to Latin American contemporary art.

One hundred of his works are featured at the retrospective exhibition, Guillermo Kuitca: Das Lied von der Erde, together with loans from the Tate Gallery, London, and the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Guillermo Kuitca derives his inspiration from other art forms, including literature, film, dance, music and theatre. He writes and directs experimental theatre pieces and has created set designs, such as for Richard Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. He began painting at the age of six and says he felt he was an artist by the time he had reached ten. When he was thirteen, he had his first exhibition at a gallery in Buenos Aires.

The artist’s works reflect his very own perceptions of the world. In Mapas, for example, the artist surveys and designs the world anew: China is on the Rhine, Switzerland by the sea, other countries are totally missing. Likewise, he condenses his city maps and architectural ground plans to form imaginary poetic and territorial worlds in which reality and fiction intersect.

Kuitca does not make preliminary sketches. His first idea is the painting itself, which he then modifies in drawings. “Sometimes I think my paintings are a step on the path to my drawings. The drawings are the goal, and the paintings the means.”

Aquarelle, a site specific, public art project by Guillermo Kuitca, will be unveiled at AQUA on Allison Island (63rd & Collins, Miami Beach) in December during Art Basel Miami Beach 2006. AQUA, a Dacra Development project, is Miami Beach’s first, New Urbanist inspired community. Aquarelle is an example of the public art that Dacra supports as part of its mission to create neighborhoods that use art, architecture and design to create a strong sense of place.
“Art in a public space adds an exciting, unexpected dimension to a neighborhood,” said Craig Robins, President of Dacra Development. “The Kuitca project is an important addition to the great public art that can now be seen in Miami,” he added.
Located in front of the Spear and Chatham Buildings, the 15’ x 9’ x 6’ excavated, pool-like permanent installation is in the shape of the footprint of Allison Island. A map-like image of the 8.5 acre-island at the bottom of the plaza will be covered by thin layer of water. Kuitca worked closely with the artisans at Fantini Mosaici in Milan to produce the sculpture, which is composed of gradated terrazzo ranging from white to charcoal grey.
Writing about Guillermo Kuitca, Olga Viso, Director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Curator of his upcoming retrospective, has observed:

“Looking to the mechanisms that have developed to define and organize the world, such as mapping and charting, and to the systems created to house, store, entertain, and contain humanity and its many physical and social processes, Kuitca has focused in particular on the spaces where individual and communal experience and personal and collective memory are exchanged. These tenuous points of intersection between the public and the private spheres of life and the many attendant contradictions are at the heart of his artistic endeavor.”

Kuitca considers this sculpture as an enlarged, physically materialized watercolor painting, and so titles it Aquarelle. The still, thin layer of water sitting above the gradated terrazzo creates the illusion of a moving image. Kuitca intends his map of Allison Island, no longer useful as a geographical chart, to create “a sense of disorientation, rather than orientation,” for the viewers.
Born in 1961 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he continues to live, Kuitca has been the prominent figure in the recent history of Latin American art. In the past twenty years, his work has transcended geographical boundaries, and has exhibited extensively around the world and been acquired by important public collections. His introduction to the United-States was a one-man exhibition, “Projects 30”, at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (1991). A major retrospective at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, took place in Madrid, and traveled to MALBA, Buenos Aires (2003). Other solo exhibitions include a show at Foundation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, Paris (2000), a survey at the Wexner Center in Columbus, Ohio, that traveled to the Whitechapel Gallery, London (1994-95), and a show at IVAM Centre del Carme in Valencia, which traveled to the Museo de Monterrey and the Museo Rufino Tamayo, in Mexico (1993). The artist has also participated in major group exhibitions, including Documenta 9 in 1992, the 1995 Carnegie International, and the 1985 and 1989 Bienal de Sao Paulo, Brazil. An upcoming retrospective, co-organized by the Hirshhorn Museum, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, and the Miami Art Museum will begin its tour in 2008 in Miami and travel to the Guggenheim Bilbao. The Daros Foundation, Zurich, opens an exhibition of 85 drawings and 11 paintings from their collection, along with major loans including works from the Tate, in November 2006. Next year, Kuitca will represent Argentina at the 2007 Venice