CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 10/23/2019

Special 'non-objects' in MoMA's 'Sur moderno'

Lygia Pape's "Untitled" (1956) is reproduced from Sur moderno, published to accompany MoMA's current show of works from Patricia Phelps de Cisneros' extraordinary recent gift to the Museum. The largest show on view outside the newly installed permanent collection, Sur moderno features abstract and Concrete works by artists from Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Venezuela. "Current painting and sculpture are converging towards a common point, distancing themselves from their origins," the Brazilian poet and critic Ferreira Gullar wrote in 1959. "They become special objects—non-objects—for which the denominations painting and sculpture perhaps no longer apply."