Leon Tovar Gallery

Leon Tovar Gallery is pleased to present Shifting Planes: Op Explorations in Latin American Abstraction opening January 25th, 2024 featuring 14 works by renowned artists Nedo (b. Milan, Italy 1926 – d. Caracas, Venezuela 2001), Julio le Parc (b. Mendoza, Argentina 1928 – ), Omar Rayo (b. Roldanillo, Colombia 1928 – d. Palmira, Colombia 2010), Francisco Salazar (b. Quiriquire, Venezuela 1929 – d. Paris, France 2018), Jesús Rafael Soto (b. Ciudad Bolívar, Venezuela 1923 – d. Paris, France 2005), and Luis Tomasello (b. La Plata, Argentina 1915 – d. Paris, France 2014). From static form to animated experimentation, Shifting Planes: Op Explorations in Latin American Abstraction chronicles a pivotal transition in Latin American art. Indeed, Nedo, le Parc, Rayo, Salazar, Soto, and Tomasello demonstrated – in their own ways and through their own contributions – the region’s capabilities for global dialogue through a new visual language emanating from its diverse cultural matrix. By boldly expanding artistic frontiers, these five artists participated in the region's assertion of its existing cultural dynamism and possibilities. Their pioneering contributions relocated Latin America from its place on the periphery of modernism to the center of vanguard movements. The arc traced from quiescence to motion mirrors Latin America's shift from overlooked to recognized, and acclaimed. To evoke Cuban historian Alejo Carpentier, these artists participated in the heralding of Latin America’s transition from object of interpretation to proponent of a new grammar that would irrevocably change the history of universal artistic thought. Shifting Planes aims to spotlight the works of these genre-defining artists, creators of an abstract visual language in constant flux, a result of their explorations with kinetics, perception, and transience. Each one of these artists contributed their own take on these experimentations, from Rayo’s fusing of geometric abstraction with Colombian folklore – blending Op Art compositions with representations of traditional dances, festivals, masks, and indigenous mythology; to Le Parc’s pioneering participatory environments that continually shift to reveal the relativity of reality and visual experience… Along with Nedo, Salazar, and Soto; the works presented here ultimately exhibit creativity freed from constraints. No longer limited to inertia, the viewer is invited to engage. The once static frame energized into endless welcoming and possibility.

Leon Tovar Gallery is proud to present an essential group exhibition featuring the works of key conceptual minimalist artists Francisco Salazar, Alejandro Otero, Julio le Parc, and Eduardo Ramirez Villamizar. "Sublime Simplicity, White as a Medium of Expression" invites you to immerse yourself in a captivating journey through the artists' unique expressions, where form and materiality intertwine to create striking visual narratives. At the heart of this exhibition are Francisco Salazar's works on corrugated cardboard and wood, showcasing his distinctive style and medium. Each piece carries its own story, inviting us to delve into a world where abstract shapes and vibrant colors dance across the surfaces. Un trou, Number 825 mesmerizes with its dynamic composition, while Deux vide et un plein, No 832 / 1987 beckons us to explore the delicate balance between negative and positive spaces, emptiness and fullness. Salazar's artistic practice, rooted in a profound understanding of materials, allowed him to breathe life into his works. Through his meticulous technique, he transformed humble mediums into works of art that strategically exude both strength and fragility. The rhythmic textures and tactile surfaces of No. 805 and Number 830 invite the viewer to sense the artist's energy and passion emanating from within.

Tsunami is a tribute to the wave of modern Latin American art that swept over the world, bringing with it a fresh and unique perspective on abstract expressionism, constructivism, geometric abstraction, and kinetic art. The exhibit will feature both painting and sculpture and will encompass the Argentine Madi Art and Concrete Art movements, Brazilian Constructivism, Geometric Abstraction, Kinetic Art and more organic abstract works that emanated from the region during the mid to second half of the 20th century. Leon Tovar Gallery has curated an immersive experience, with each work carefully selected to showcase the full range and depth of the featured art movements. The gallery prides itself in presenting pioneering artists and works that have transcended time, and will continue doing so.

Leon Tovar Gallery is pleased to announce its new solo exhibition featuring the extraordinary works by newly represented artist: Omar Rayo – Larutan atur al This solo show is an homage to Omar Rayo’s work, to his travels and to his vision, inspired by ancient civilizations and numerous encounters with indigenous people, artifacts, symbols, and signs, that left an evident imprint on him. Per the exhibition title - a palindrome - one of Rayo’s favorite word structures, this exhibition conveys the natural route to our origins. This exhibition showcases paintings made from the 1960’s to the early 2000’s. These pieces show his refined technique, his exactitude and tremendous skill throughout his career. Some of these pieces will be shown to the public for the first time. This show has been possible thanks to the collaboration of the Rayo Museum and its entire team, especially its director, Águeda Pizarro de Rayo, and Sara Rayo.

Leon Tovar gallery is pleased to announce is latest show “Invisible: A tale of ethereal lines,” highlighting the work of Jesús Rafael Soto. In Paris, Soto questioned the tradition of geometric abstraction inherited from Piet Mondrian on the grounds that it did not break sufficiently with representation. In order to move “beyond Mondrian,” he brought painting into the realm of lived space and time by working in layers, at first by painting on and combining transparencies, then later working with wire, wood, and other materials placed in front of an alternating linear background. As viewers move in front of these patterned layers, they experience electrifying optical sensations, as foreground and background moves in a pulsing interplay. Unlike traditional painting, there are a multiplicity of vantage points for these works, and they exist in a state of constant change relative to the viewer’s position. Aesthetic creation becomes the work of the spectator, and no longer of an individual artist. In the late ’50s and early ’60s, Soto became close with members of Nouveau Réalism, particularly Yves Klein, as well as Group Zero. Intrigued by Klein’s desire to incorporate elements of daily life into his artistic production, Soto’s art from this period utilizes objects of a durable and rough materiality—wood, “twisted wires, rough stucco, fabric.” His mission, however, is precisely to overcome this materiality, to render the objects as immaterial through the power of optical effects. Soto described his endeavors as “taking the most insignificant but strongly formal objects—old wood, wire, needles, gratings, pipes—to integrate them into the work and bring them to a state of disintegration through pure vibration.” Thus, Soto was able to present the constant movement and flux of our universe, the essential energy of it. The artist explains his conception of the universe as follows: “...I have never sought to show reality caught at one precise moment, but, on the contrary, to reveal universal change, of which temporality and infinitude are the constituent values. The universe, I believe, is uncertain and unsettled. The same must be true of my work.” The show touches upon Soto’s own experiments with vibrations produced by this simple sequencing of black and white parallel lines to also prioritize the present moment of perception, but in doing so powerfully illustrate the constantly shifting nature of our universe and of matter itself.