Geraldo de Barros (1923–1998), was a Brazilian painter, photographer and designer, and a founding member of the Brazilian Concrete art movement. De Barros initially trained as an economist, but in the mid-1940s, while still employed at Banco do Brasil, he began studying art. He first made a name for himself as a photographer with the abstract series entitled Fotoforma, which he showed in 1951 at the Sao Paulo Museum of Modern Art. The unconventional nature of this work won him a scholarship that enabled him to study and travel in Europe. There he met Max Bill and François Morellet, with whom he maintained close ties. De Barros was particularly interested in Gestalt theory and the geometry of Concrete art. When he returned to Brazil he founded the Grupo Ruptura, along with Waldemar Cordeiro and Luis Sacilotto, among others. The group’s aim was to align Brazilian art with the modernization movement then sweeping the country. In 1956 de Barros took part in the first International Exhibition of Concrete Art in Sao Paulo, and in 1960 his work was included in the international Konkrete Kunst exhibition organized in Zurich by Max Bill. Meanwhile, in 1954, his interest in the applied arts led him to found Unilabor, a utopian cooperative devoted to the construction of modern furniture. MAMCO’s exhibition retraces this trajectory, taking as its point of departure de Barros’s return to concrete art at the end of the 1970s when, abandoning the use of brushes and canvas, he took up new materials such as Formica.
| Hours | Tuesday to Friday: 12:00 PM - 6:00 PMSaturday and Sunday: 11:00 PM - 6:00 PM |
| Venue | MAMCO Geneva |
| Type | Design Exhibition |
| Duration | 12:00 PM - 6:00 PM |
| City | Geneva |
About
Musée D’art Moderne Et Contemporain (MAMCO GENEVA)
Since its opening in 1994, the MAMCO Geneva (Musée d’art moderne et contemporain), has developed an original form of museography. Mainly working with art from since the 1960s, MAMCO bases its action on several principles: a conception of the museum as a “global exhibition” which brings together, in the continuity of a visit, temporary exhibitions and renewed presentations of its permanent collections; a variation in the types of spaces and displays, so as to evoke the history of museums (from a collector’s apartment to the “white cube” or the artist’s studio); a “collection of artists’ spaces” (ECART Group, Sarkis, Claude Rutault, and a Cabinet of Concrete poetry); and, finally, a regular attention to the Genevan and Swiss scenes. Devoted to the art of our era, it places art and artists at its hearth and is addressed at all publics. It offers historical journeys through several exhibitions articulated around a main project, renewed three times a year. Established in a disused factory, purchased by the City of Geneva, the spaces of the MAMCO are spread over 3,500 m2, thus making it currently the largest museum devoted to contemporary art in Switzerland.
