São Paulo – The largest exhibition ever devoted to the oeuvre of Brazilian artist of Syrian Lebanese descent Judith Lauand is on display at the São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP) until April 2. Lauand was Brazil’s first concrete artist. Born on May 26, 1922, in Pontal, São Paulo, Judith is the daughter of a Lebanese father and a Syrian mother. They moved to Araraquara when she was 1 year old. Judith died on December 9 this year, after turning 100, a few days after the opening of her exhibition at MASP, called Judith Lauand: Concrete Deviation.
The artist produced for over 70 years. The exhibition at the most prestigious museum in São Paulo reviews the career of Laudan, who was the only woman to tale part of Grupo Ruptura [Rupture Group], which gathered artists who wanted to advance concrete art in Brazil.
Her oeuvre has often been overlooked by Brazilian art critics. The retrospective of her career path intends to foster new research and debates around her production.
Judith Lauand played a central role Brazilian art, especially in the context of the Concrete Movement that emerged in the second half of the twentieth century. The exhibition at MASP seeks to put into perspective the transition she made in the mid-1950s to geometric abstraction from a production initially based on Figurative art.
The exhibition spans six decades with 128 works and dozens of documents from the artist’s personal files.
Lauand graduated from the School of Fine Arts in Araraquara, a relevant artistic hub in the region. In 1952, she moved to São Paulo with her family, and in 1954 she was a monitor at the 2nd São Paulo International Biennale, a milestone in her education. It was at that point that she learned about the work of artists such as Alexandre Wollner (1928–2018) and Geraldo de Barros (1923–1998).
The following year she was invited by Waldemar Cordeiro (1925–1973) to join the Grupo Ruptura, being the only woman to actively participate in this historic movement. Lauand took part in the 1st National Exhibition of Concrete Art, first held at São Paulo in 1956, and later at the Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro in 1957.
The artist conceived a unique form of dynamism, creating new relationships amongst shapes, lines, and colors, transcending the rules and conventions of the time, the 1950s and 1960s. Later, she opened up to experiments regarding the plane that included unique conversations between image and word, then moved on to work with the materiality of objects on surfaces, using staples, clips, thumbtacks, and other elements.
Despite the formal rigor she applied in her compositions, rhythm and movement were never far from her works, which contrast elements through a dynamic balance, creating tensions and ruptures, another aspect of her artistic uniqueness.
The show also addresses new perspectives in her oeuvre, reinforcing the role of political issues such as the repression of the military dictatorship in Brazil, the Vietnam War, and the social condition of Brazilian women, when the artist crosses themes such as violence, sexuality, submission, and female freedom.
Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce (ABCC) Cultural director Silvia Antibas visited the exhibition. She said the show is “a review of the art of Judith Lauand” and adds that MASP will start a research center focused on her oeuvre. “Her vanguardism is worth stressing, as a daughter of Syrian and Lebanese immigrants that worked in Brazil’s art avant-garde,” Antibas said.
Judith Lauand’s exhibition is part of MASP’s biennium program devoted to Brazilian Histories in 2021–22, coinciding with the bicentennial of the Independence of Brazil in 2022.
The catalog has been published in Portuguese and English; it is illustrated, with unpublished essays. Concrete Deviation is curated by Adriano Pedrosa, artistic director of MASP, and Fernando Oliva, the museum’s curator, with assistance from Matheus de Andrade, curatorial assistant.
MASP opens normally on holidays, except December 24 and 25 (Christmas holiday) and December 31 and January 1 (New Year’s holiday).
Quick facts
Judith Lauand: Concrete deviation
November 25, 2022, to April 2, 2023
São Paulo Art Museum
Avenida Paulista 1578
Free Entrance on Tuesdays, from 10 am to 8 pm
Wednesdays to Sundays, from 10 am to 6 pm
Tickets for BRL 25 (half price) to BRL 50 (full price)
Translated by Guilherme Miranda
