Painter Manuel Espinosa is best known as a leading member of the Concrete Art movement in Argentina. In the wake of World War I, Espinosa and fellow founding members of the Asociación Arte Concreto-Invención (Concrete-Invention Art Association) chose to forgo figurative traditions in favor of exercises in geometry, color and form. In a 1946 manifesto they declared, “the artistic era of representational fiction has reached its end.” Instead, they sought a universal language that could inspire new forms of societal organization and offer hope for a more humane and empathetic future.

Aamedhag, 1974 exemplifies Espinosa’s work from the early 1970s. Based on a principle espoused by Swiss architect Max Bill (1908-1994) that systematic variations on a theme could result in a more precise understanding of a specific form, Espinosa repeated the square in layers of blue acrylic as a means of expressing the shape’s essence. The 11 x 11 grid offers a rigorous structural support for the lyrical application of layers of hand-painted shapes. The music of French composer Erik Satie (1866-1925) and the texts of Irish writer James Joyce (1882-1941) were important influences for Espinosa, offering innovative approaches to rhythm and serialization. The title Aamedhag is an invented word, suggesting the abstract musicality of a series of tones rather than a specific reference. Nuances of light and color expressed through abstract, poetic geometries, such as those in Aamedhag, define the practice of this seminal Latin American artist.

About the Artist

Manuel Espinosa (b. 1912 Buenos Aires, d. 2006 Buenos Aires, Argentina) co-founded the Asociación Arte Concreto-Invención in Buenos Aires in 1945, together with artist Tomás Maldonado (1922-2018). He traveled frequently to Europe beginning in 1951 and was exposed to movements such as De Stijl in the Netherlands, Op Art in Italy and the Allianz group of Concrete Artists in Switzerland. Although his early work featured surrealist symbols and figures, his formal vocabulary was defined by geometric abstraction from 1944 until his death in 2006.

Espinosa’s work has been featured in prominent exhibitions in both Argentina and abroad. His work is held in the permanent collections of numerous international institutions, including the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois; Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas, Austin; Fondo Nacional de las Artes (FNA), Buenos Aires, Argentina; Museum de Arte Contemporaneo de Buenos Aires (MACBA); Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas (MACC), Venezuela; Museo Moderno, Buenos Aires; Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires; The Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Providence, Rhode Island; Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), Chicago, Illinois; and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Texas.