Geometric Abstraction in the 21^st Century: Mariana Copello’s Frecuencia Geométrica 3+1 (Blue/Gold) by Anna Tahinci, Ph.D.

Mariana Copello’s art brings Latin American modernist geometric abstraction into the 21^st century. Her art is rectilinear and neo-Minimalist and her visual language engages the viewer into the golden ratio, music, and dance. In her sculptures and installations she masters lines and colors in both small formats and monumental dimensions.

Her interplay of lines and colors creates a unique rhythm and her deep understanding of color and color theory creates optical effects engaging the viewer into the fourth dimension of Time. Each one of Copello’s artworks offers an immersive and dynamic experience for the viewer. Her colored forms seem to be dancing in space and ultimately the viewer becomes the choreographer of the piece.

Her wall installation Frecuencia Geométrica 3+1 (Blue/Gold) is a unique piece made in painted stainless steel in 2019. Frequency describes the number of waves that pass a fixed place in a given amount of time, the rate at which a vibration occurs either in a material or an electromagnetic field. Copello transforms the visual vibrations of geometry into positive and negative space exploring dualities: intellect and intuition, light and shadow, symmetry and asymmetry, loneliness and togetherness, and everything in between.

Anna Tahinci, Ph.D. Professor and Chair of Art History

The Glassell School of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

June 2019

“Concretism and Abstraction. Languages of the Latin American Modernity” by Dennys Matos

Art Nouveau Gallery celebrates its more than thirty years of work on Latin American abstraction with an exemplary program of expositions during 2018. A trajectory of more than three decades presenting great masters and discovering new values of abstract creation from Latin America.

Concretism and Abstraction. Languages of the Latin American Modernity presents a selection of artists whose works have developed within the margins of abstract art and concrete art. Artists of international relevance, covering more than four decades of creation in the abstract and concrete panorama of Latin America, as for example, Lia Bermudez, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Mariana Copello, Paul Amundarain, Jesus Soto, Sandu Darie, Carlos Medina, Milton Becerra y Abel Ventoso. “Concretism and Abstraction (…) gathers a score of works done with a great variety of media, such as painting, watercolor, drawing and sculpture.

The samples are within the framework of Art Nouveau‘s special program for its more than thirty years divulging works of Latinamerican abstract masters. Effort which it has complemented with the promotion of emerging artists, belonging to new generations whose trajectories begin to outstanding in high international circles of contemporary art. In this special programming for 2018 the following exhibitions, among others, stand out: “Paul Amundarain. Tropical Garden” “Alberto Cavalieri. Pipe Line” and “Abstracción Cubana”.

Concretism and Abstraction. Languages of the Latin American Modernity closes these celebrations of the 30^th anniversary of the gallery, where the highlights have been important works of great names in latinamerican abstractionism , such as Cruz-Diez and Lia Bermudez. Artists whom among others, made up the base upon which the gallery’s project was established.

Alongside these famous names, there are recent works by novel artists, as for example Amundarain and Copello. Together they offer the spectator a curious connection between the different expressions that the art of abstraction reaches in Latinamerica. From the abstract art of informalist character, passing through an abstraction of geometric inspiration, into the concrete spirit painting. Showing, beyond their differences, the points of contact among these diverse expressions, which have made abstraction the language of the Latinamerican modernity project.

Dennys Matos

Curator

Art Nouveau Gallery, Miami

Photograph, Serie Homenaje, by Rosa Ana Orlando

Mariana Copello (Venezuelan, b. 1976), Serie Homenaje (limited edition), digital photography on paper, 2017, 11 X 8.5 inches, signed and dated lower right 

This photograph is the result of the artist’s commitment to help Venezuela, and it was first conceived to raise funds for Venezuelan immigrants. The photograph has a very special story, as the image comes from the documenting process of a sculpture’s model that got lost in the mail. This is a work that only exists as an image, and it pays homage to the sculpture that it could have become after completion. It is also metaphorically a tribute to dreams, hope, and creativity. In her works (mostly sculptures) she explores the aesthetic and harmonic consolidation of the rectilinear form, and music exerts a decisive influence.

Rosa Ana Orlando

Art Specialist

Houston, 2018

"Abstract Matter" by Milagros Bello Ph.D.

In her post-modern abstraction, Mariana Copello proposes a rupture and at the same a dialogue with modernism. On one level, through the random and irregularly organized segments of pieces sticking one another in different asymmetrical order, Copello argues against the order and the rigid process of creation that exist in the modernistic approach, as well as in its academic tactics. The planches attach together on asymmetrical positions, and at different changing levels, giving the work an inventive movement and charisma. The sculptures reveal a dynamic constructive method of structural un-equivalency. A seductive twist of chance emerges on the ever changing positions of the planches. The works play on fortuitous compositional combinations creating surprise and incidental visual effects.

On another level, and pointing out more towards a classic vocabulary, the shapes of the sculptures are set through successive rectangular geometries that follow the golden proportion. The dominant rectangular segments based on the proportional harmonic ratio create great congruence and synchronization. The parts interact with majestic excellence outlining on a comparative serial measurement in successive expansion. The sculptures summarize a paradigm for Beauty and Harmony establishing a connection to the millenary Greek notions of canon and perfect proportion.

In Copello’s Allegro Series (2014) and Impromptu Series (2015), a complex grid of superimposed rectangles spike into a potent energetic ascension just as the levitating rhythm of a cathedral or the dancing allure of a gothic building. It dominates a linear composition of ascending vitality in which the compendium of overlapped sections in soaring waves sets a prevalent absolute feminine magnetism. Perhaps echoing the artist’s anima? The work rises up into upper cosmic levels where its physicality and “objectual” weigh is substituted by a subtle levitation of delicate spirit. It prevails a vivid drive of inner forces.

The artist has developed into another divergent minimal geometry, the cube with which she proceeds using the same constructivist method. In Geometria Caribe (2014), five cubic shapes in gradient sizes align in the space vertically or spread out in the wall. The modular segments assembly in perfect formation diminishing in size in a discrete and an autonomous linear configuration. The repeated cubic pieces stand from the wall as independent units. They float freely unattached and interplaying with the surrounding setting. Their aerial and imposing presence transforms the visual environment and the architecture of the place. Copello’s simple geometry and its highly-industrialized finish on fiberglass or aluminum remind the simplicity and the “objectual” allure of Minimalism.

The bright colors of the works sustain solid connections to the subliminal impact of memories of nature in the artist. Her biographical history associated to the tropics, to her natal city of Maracaibo in Venezuela, weight outstandingly in the powerful chromatic forces of the sculptures. From primary reds and yellows to oranges and greens, her works define radical shines that inspire ethos and celebration.

Behind Copello’s geometric constructivist arrangement hide an aural connection to music. The structural organization of the works prompts to pulsating cadences. An imaginary musical pentagram of beating tempo paces out in different cycles. The pieces reveal acoustic/optical resonances. Fictional melodies subliminally emerge from the compositional arrangement of the piece. It is on the viewer to discover the musical modulations from the visual forms of the sculpture, and to access to the reverberations, the inflections and echoes that emanate from the rich shapes and the accentuated colors that dominate in the works.

Mariana Copello with her arresting geometries is one of the emergent voices in America that sets up a new dialogue with what Michael Fried called "objecthood" as a notion for the purity and inner spirit of the abstract matter.

Milagros Bello, Ph.D.

Curator

Miami, 2014