MINI / Goethe-Institut Curatorial Residencies Ludlow 38 present:

Waldemar Cordeiro & Franz Mon, Exhibition, February 24 – March 27, 2011

Opening February 24, 2011,  6:00 – 8:00 pm

MINI/Goethe-Institut Curatorial Residencies Ludlow 38 is pleased to announce, Waldemar Cordeiro & Franz Mon, the first exhibition at its newly designed exhibition space on New York’s Lower East Side. Devised by New York based artist Martin Beck and architect Ken Saylor the new space design consists of a series of functional interventions calling into question larger issues of context, scale, institutional identity, and conventions of display. A new graphic design concept for the space has been developed in collaboration with H I T (Annette Lux & Lina Grumm). Tobi Maier is curating the program for 2011, with several other curatorial residents coming to take the helm at Ludlow 38 over the coming years.

The exhibition at MINI/Goethe-Institut Curatorial Residencies Ludlow 38 presents selected works from two pioneers of Concrete Art and Poetry, Waldemar Cordeiro (*1925 - 1973) from Brazil and Franz Mon (*1926) from Germany. The exhibited pieces reach from the mid-1960’s to the present and combine sculpture, collage, and computer printouts with typewriter text and sound work. With a mutual interest in the deconstruction of the photographic image, language, and typography, the work of both artists oftentimes follows rigid concepts by which formal aspects can be completed independently of the author. Attributes of Concrete Art such as the structural focus on materials and processes, the appropriation of constructivist language, and the search for the general reduction of expressive means emanate from their practice. Logic and rationality became a founding principle of The Ruptura Group, which Cordeiro was involved with in the São Paulo of the 1950’s. Similar characteristics can also be found in the work of Mon who says that “Concrete Poetry for me is poetry of principles, there is a principle you invent and then you carry that through, whatever happens.” Language and communication in the age of technology are topics that are approached from different viewpoints and through a variety of means. Differences and analogies between Cordeiro and Mon illustrate the engaged and experimental approach to art that reflects the two artists’ interests in the developments of technology, politics, and society during the second half of the 20th and the early 21st century and at times also conveys surreal messages.

Waldemar Cordeiro was a visual artist, computer programmer, and landscape designer. He exhibited in several São Paulo Biennials from 1951 through 1975 and participated in the New Tendencies exhibitions in Zagreb (1965, 1968) when he began dedicating himself to so-called Computer Art. Recent exhibitions include Constructive Spirit: Abstract Art in South and North America, 1920s - 50s at the Newark Museum (2010) as well as a solo show at Centro Universitário Maria Antônia, São Paulo, in 2002.

Franz Mon has been visual artist, writer, and producer of a number of audio plays for radio stations HR, WDR, ORF Vienna and Radio Stockholm. Together with Friedrich Mahlow he conceived the exhibition Schrift und Bild at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and Kunsthalle Baden-Baden (1963), in the context of which he founded Typos publishers. His visual work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions, among them the 1970 Venice Biennial, and most recently a retrospective at Haus Konstruktiv in Zurich (2010).

On the occasion of the exhibition a publication will be launched during Armory Fair week. Published in collaboration with Spector Books Leipzig and designed by H I T (Berlin/London) the publication features a translation of The Ruptura Group manifest (1952) as well as Franz Mon’s About concrete poetry (1969) and contributions by Adele Nelson, Margit Rosen, Luis Perez-Oramas as well as by Cecilia Grönberg and Jonas (J) Magnusson, and Tobi Maier.

MINI/Goethe-Institut Curatorial Residencies Ludlow 38 is supported by MINI and Friends of Goethe

MINI/Goethe-Institut Curatorial Residencies Ludlow 38, 38 Ludlow Street, between Grand and Hester, New York 10002, USA      
 Tel +1 212 228 6848, info@ludlow38.orgwww.ludlow38.org