Museum of Latin American art presents rarely seen paintings | lisa ...

It's difficult to imagine an artist who never exhibited in his lifetime and never sold an artwork, yet still gets an extensive museum exhibition nearly three decades after his death.

Even Vincent van Gogh exhibited his work and sold one painting during his tortured life.

Esteban Lisa's "Juego con l?neas y colores/Playing with Lines and Colors," c. 1954, an oil on paper. It's from a private collection in Madrid, Spain, and it's on view at the Museum of Latin American Art through May 27.

TEXT BY RICHARD CHANG, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER; IMAGE COURTESY OF MOLAA

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'Esteban Lisa: Playing with Lines and Colors' and 'Magdalena Fern?ndez: 2iPM009'

Where: Museum of Latin American Art, 628 Alamitos Ave., Long Beach

When: Through May 27

Hours: 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesdays-Sundays, open until 9 p.m. Thursdays

How much: $9 general, $6 for seniors and students with ID, free for children under 12

Call: 562-437-1689

Online: molaa.org

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Through May 27, the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach is presenting "Esteban Lisa: Playing with Lines and Colors." It's the artist's first solo museum exhibition in the United States.

The retrospective ? curated by Barbara Bloemink and Jorge Virgili ? consists of 79 paintings, six pastels on paper, a charcoal on paper and a relief printed from marble. There's also a display of ephemera and books by Lisa, along with a 24-minute video on his life and influence.

Lisa was born in Toledo, Spain in 1895 and emigrated to Buenos Aires, Argentina, as a child in 1907. He spent most of his life in Buenos Aires, and considered himself primarily a thinker, teacher and writer. He founded a modern art school in Buenos Aires and wrote 14 books, including "Kant, Einstein and Picasso" and "The Theory of Cosmovision and the Vision of Plato."

Though he created his artwork privately and rarely showed it to anyone, he is now regarded by art scholars as one of the pioneers of abstraction in Latin America, along with Juan Del Prete and Joaqu?n Torres-Garc?a. Historically, his work doesn't fit well with the modern abstract traditions of his time or region. Lisa is considered a bit of an anomaly; yet his oeuvre is an important contribution to the overall understanding of abstraction in 20th century Latin American art.

Lisa's work illustrates the broad influence of European abstract expressionism, specifically the artists Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee. One can also detect some of Pablo Picasso and Willem de Kooning's influence in Lisa's painting.

Music seems play an important part in Lisa's work, as it did in Kandinsky's. One can almost read notes of ascendance and harmony in Lisa's "Playing with Lines and Colors" oil on paper series.

The MOLAA panels say that Lisa went through many stylistic periods during his artistic career. However, this retrospective looks pretty consistent from beginning to end. I couldn't detect too many dynamic shifts or fundamental changes in his approach, as one might see in Joan Mir?'s work, or that of Lisa's idol Picasso. Lisa's later pieces from the 1960s do get more sparse, with less dense application of color and more of the background paper emerging through.

One of the challenges of this exhibit is that dozens of his works share the same title: "Composition" from the 1930s and '40s, or "Playing with Lines and Colors" from the 1950s and '60s. There's also a "Spatial Act" series of pastels on paper from 1954 and 1955.

While there's certainly nuance and geometric and spatial variety from piece to piece, the works do have a tendency of blurring into one another. For instance, it's hard to articulate in words how Lisa's "Playing with Lines and Colors" oils on cardboard from 1953 are different from each other.

Some works in this exhibit look a bit rudimentary, or like private experiments in line, shape and color. One wonders if these were ever meant to be shown to the public at all.

Nevertheless, Lisa's "Playing with Lines and Colors" oils from 1953-55 do appear to be his strongest pieces.

This exhibition includes an interesting documentary directed by Ariel Zylberberg, who interviewed several of Lisa's students and disciples. The subjects, now graying themselves, uniformly praise Lisa and regard him as a sagacious and multi-talented mentor. According to the interviews, Lisa not only helped them with their art and ideas, but also with fundamental attitudes toward life and learning.

While this show is occasionally repetitive and has its minor flaws, overall, "Playing with Lines and Colors" is an enjoyable and rare look at an obscure and talented figure, along with his trove of art, which hasn't been seen by many people.

A VIDEO ARTIST TO WATCH

Next door to the Lisa exhibit (and impossible to ignore because of its loud storm sounds) is "Magdalena Fern?ndez: 2iPM009," an offering of the Venezuelan artist's relatively recent video work, curated by Julia P. Herzberg.

With one large installation and four smaller pieces, it's a pretty cool selection from an artist who ? in contrast to Lisa ? is operating right in the mix of cutting-edge 21st century art.

Fern?ndez appears to be influenced by Piet Mondrian, Kasimir Malevich, Sol LeWitt and the Latin American artists Torres-Garc?a, Jes?s Soto and the Mad? Group. She shares many of these artists' interests in shape, geometry and minimalism, with the extra aspects of time and sound.

Fern?ndez's main work, "2iPM009" (2009), is directly inspired by Mondrian's black and white painting, "Composition in Line" (1917), and incorporates the Dutch modernist's initials "PM" in the title.

"2iPM009" is a large video installation on two walls of a darkened gallery. It's black and white, starting with dots that transform into lines that get bigger and thicker, then multiply with the increase in rain sounds. The sound is provided by Perpetuum Jazzile, a performance choir that has created all the sound effects naturally (and without water) by snapping fingers, clapping hands and jumping on floorboards. The performance definitely sounds like rain and thunder, and combined with Fern?ndez's visuals, "2iPM009" is an amazing piece.

Also part of this exhibit is "1pm006 (Ara ararauna)" (2006), another homage to Mondrian. Fern?ndez starts with a peaceful presentation of blue, yellow and green rectangles, similar to Mondrian's work from the 1930s. She then interrupts the silence with the shriek of the blue and yellow macaw (Ara ararauna), making the noise correspond with a sudden alteration in the composition.

Along similar lines, "1dm004 (Eleutherodactylus coqui)" (2004) is a black and white rectangle that gets interrupted and altered with the croak of a frog. The Eleutherodactylus coqui tree frog, native to Puerto Rico, was introduced to Caracas in 1958. Its mating call can reach nearly 100 decibels, and it's considered among the top 100 "world's worst" invasive species. The sharp angles that jut into the rectangle when the frog croaks vary wildly and are fascinating to follow.

Fern?ndez excels in combining sound and video, producing works that are simultaneously simple and profound. Her videos at MOLAA definitely demonstrate that she's an artist to watch.

Contact the writer: 714-796-6026 or rchang@ocregister.com

Source: http://www.ocregister.com/entertainment/lisa-343955-one-art.html

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