Modernism in the Americas
Elliot Bostwick Davis—John Moors Cabot Chair, Art of the Americas—and assistant curator Heather Hole consider the placement of Al Loving’s Cube 27 (1970), shown left, and César Paternosto’s Staccato (1965), both displayed prominently in the central gallery of Level 3, highlighting 20th-century art through the mid-1970s.
Modernist artists from North, Central, and South America were, in many cases, far more interconnected than we realize. They often knew each other directly, or had mutual associations with avant-garde European artists. Many of these artists shared an interest in creating a recognizably homegrown form of modernism, emphasizing their American roots by referencing everything from ancient Inkan stonework to historic New England barns. The third floor’s main gallery features recent acquisitions such as Argentine César Paternosto’s Staccato—never before shown at the MFA—which draws on both the bold geometry of Andean textiles and the art of Josef Albers, whose colorful abstractions the artist saw in Buenos Aires in 1964. The wing also includes work by Chilean artists Claudio Bravo and Matta, and thanks to the generosity of the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, a rotating group of loans by major South American modernists Joaquín Torres-Garcia, Jesús Rafael Soto, Alfredo Hlito, Hélio Oiticica, and others. This floor of the wing offers a new perspective on the art of the Americas, and a new context in which to see the art of the United States.