07 Mar 2018

Vardagnega, Soto, & Lezaca

Mundo Arte Galeria

Reviewed by Andy Gambrell

"Vardanega, Soto, & Lezaca" presents geometric abstraction spanning five decades. Gregorio Vardanega's Carres Lumineaux (1968) is a box with nine windows, each filled with concentric squares of white. Hidden bulbs illuminate in different configurations. Curiously, unlit black squares sit in front, while glowing white squares drop into deep space. Also on display is Caroni (1971), a group of serigraphs by Jesus Soto. Bundles of mostly parallel lines overlap minimal compositions to provoke optical mixing.

Alberto Lezaca's 2015 painting, La Densidad Del Reflejo, presents neutrally colored geometric masses, evocative of Utopian modern architecture, against flat, taped, vertical stripes. While the aesthetic of Lezaca's work appears modernist, his pictures do not exist for their own sake. His forms are signifiers in paintings that are to be read rather than experienced. This exhibition illustrates the divide between an era of investigative expression and one of informed discourse.