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Constructive Universalism
[ From 2nd of October 2009 to 10th of January 2010 ]
Constructive Universalism is a way of seeing and making art, a synthesis which Torres García carries out by combining his experiences with the European vanguard of the beginnings of the XX century with his vision of art from all ages, particularly from South America.
Constructive Universalism was also the title of the book which included the 150 lectures given by Torres García since his return to Uruguay in 1934 to 1943 and which in 1944 the publisher Poseidon of Buenos Aires published with this significant sub-title: “CONTRIBUTION TO THE UNIFICATION OF THE ART AND CULTURE OF AMERICA”. Throughout these 150 lectures Torres García spoke of the fundaments of plastic art and artistic work, the artist as creator and as man. Equilibrium, the Spirit of the work, Spirit and Material, The idea of structure as a basis for artistic creation, The abstract and the concrete, Reason and Nature, Symbolism, Classicism, Modern Art and Traditional Art, Tone and Colour and The Human factor in art, are some of the ideas discussed in this book.
The 253 drawings of Constructive Universalism were produced especially by Torres García to graphically support that which he expressed in his lectures. In these drawings, the art of Torres García consists of a multitude of forms, covering the whole spectrum ranging from figurative art to pure abstraction, and yet showing great unity as a collection, a unity which in this exhibit is strengthened with the interaction of constructive works of other formats and media, all of them diverse manifestations of one same method of creation.
This exhibition takes place thanks to the collaboration between the Antonio Saura Foundation of Cuenca and the Torres García Museum of Montevideo, who accepted the offer of putting on the travelling exhibition at the Casa Zavala which, since 2005, has been taken around diverse exhibition sites of South America (National Museum of Visual Arts of Chile; Tomie Othakie Institute and the Oscar Niemeyer Museum of Brazil, Borges Cultural Centre of Argentina).
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