Jowa Imre Kis-Jovak creates the design for the Retrospective Exhibition of Oswaldo Vigas
ArquiRed
Mexico. June 8, 2016
Oswaldo Vigas: Anthological 1943 - 2013
April 2 – July 3, 2016
Museu De Arte Contemporânea (MAC) da Universidade de São Paulo
SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL - The Dutch renowned architect / interior designer Jowa Imre Kis-Jovak who belongs to the outstanding Architectenbureau Jowa studio from the city of Amsterdam, has designed the exhibition for the retrospective of the artist Oswaldo Vigas in the MAC Museum currently on display through July 3rd 2016. Organized by the Oswaldo Vigas Foundation, the traveling exhibition presents sixty-three paintings and six sculptures created by the Venezuelan artist (1923-2014) who was a pioneer of Latin American art. The exhibition has been curated by Belgica Rodriguez and the display of São Paulo includes also the curatorship by Katja Weitering, Director of the CoBrA Museum Amsterdam.
The retrospective spans 70 years and shows the diverse influence on the work of Vigas which synthesizes pre-Hispanic art and African statues with contemporary trends of Abstract Expressionism and Neo-Expressionism. After spending a considerable amount of time in the 1950s and 1960s in the city of Paris, Vigas returned to Venezuela permanently, indelibly changed by the different experiences he lived abroad. The rest of his career is marked by a variation between the figurative, the abstract and the experimentation with different media such as sculpture, tapestries, engravings, and ceramics.
Working within the parameters of the long rectangular display space of the MAC designed by architect Oscar Niemeyer, Imre Kis-Jovak created an exhibition design organized around five "cabinets". Each cabinet contains works from different artistic life issues of Vigas, downplaying the chronology and stressing his multifaceted work. The five cabinets are: The Human Form, Mythological, Private Life, Constructivism and Matteriological, and Freedom of Matter.
A large photographic poster of Vigas located at entrance beside the display’s text welcome visitors into the themed rooms. A diagonal wall that shows the most representative works of each theme, divide the cabinets in two triangles.
The central cabinet connects his biography with the practice of his atelier. This portion of the exhibit includes objects from the art collection of Vigas as well as an illustrated chronology of the life of the artist. The exhibition ends at a screening room that shows films about the life of Vigas. Vigas' work comes alive along with static and moving images of himself, his belongings and photographs of his atelier.
For more information, please visit: www.jowa.nl
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About Imre Kis-Jovak
Imre Kis-Jovak is director and founder of the Architectenbureau Jowa study that bears his alias. Jowa received his training in interior design in his former homeland: Yugoslavia. He graduated in architectural design and 3D at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in the city of Amsterdam where he also served as an academic: teaching vocational theory, interior and furnishing design. He has worked on exhibition design projects at the Museum CoBrA Museum (Amsterdam), the Frick Museum (New York), and the National Museum of Antiquities (Leiden), among others. As well as in the Netherlands and abroad, he is regularly invited to give lectures on topics of exhibition design and his sources of inspiration, such as the vernacular architecture of the Toraja in Sulswesi, Indonesia. He has also published several books and articles on his research area www.jowa.nl.