Technical Studies of Works from Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros

Most of the art works in this study were paintings on canvas and wooden panels. The earliest ones were made in Buenos Aires, in 1946, the latest in São Paulo in 1962. Argentine and Brazilian artists paid great attention to their supports out of a desire to do away with the tradition of the two-dimensional painting as an illusionistic window to the world. However, the material strategies differed among the artists in the study in that the Argentines developed irregularly shaped works, marcos recortados (cut-out frames), while a number of the Brazilian artists emphasized the sculptural quality of their works by using hardboard panels and attaching deep hanging devices that allow the works to hover in space.

In the 1950s, Brazil began to produce a range of hardboard panels from the fibers of Paraná pine and eucalyptus. By contrast, equivalent panels manufactured in the United States, such as Masonite, were made of yellow pine and other residual products of the wood industry. Also, in keeping with the avant-garde movements in Europe and the United States, most of the Brazilian Concrete artists experimented with novel industrial paints and methods of application as a means of asserting their break with the past.

The project investigated whether these material preferences significantly affected the making as well as the appearance of the works and to what extent these choices can be seen as conscious efforts on the artists' part to create a new aesthetic. All insights were put into the larger historic context of European and North American abstract painting in order to identify commonalities as well as practices and preferences specific to the Latin American context.

Using a range of invasive and non-invasive scientific methods of analysis, the project team determined the exact nature of the types of binding media and pigments used, as well as gleaned information about the way in which these materials were used and manipulated.

Considering the very specific visual vocabulary of geometric abstraction, particular attention was paid to how the lines and edges of the compositional elements were painted. Some artists preferred to devise their shapes freehand, without the help of aids except pencil lines to guide their hands, while others perfected the use of a ruling pen, and still others adapted self-adhesive tape to their purposes.

One of the questions the project team addressed is why Argentine Concrete artists tended to stay away from tape, while the majority of Brazilian artists made liberal and uncommonly creative use of it. What influence did the practices of European artists such as Piet Mondrian, Georges Vantongerloo and Max Bill, to whom both groups looked for guidance, exert in this regard?