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Lot Essay
We are grateful to Daniel Roesler and Galeria Nara Roesler in São Paulo for their assistance cataloguing this work.
Abraham Palatnik is internationally recognized as one of the pioneers of kinetic art. He was born in Natal in Rio Grande do Norte in Northeast Brazil in 1928, and moved as a child with his family to Palestine, where as a teenager he took courses in mechanics, physics and art. He returned to Brazil in 1947 and settled in Rio, where he met Almir Mavignier who introduced him to the workshops being carried out by Dr. Nise da Silveira with psychiatric patients at the Hospital Dom Pedro (Engenho de dentro). During this same period he met Mario Pedrosa who introduced him to Gestalt psychology. These experiences would be formative in the definition of the future directions his work would take (as much as they were for Mavignier and Serpa, also involved in the workshops). Palatnik would later state that being exposed to the art of these psychiatric patients made him rethink his approach to art and his exploration of new visual languages and forms.
In 1951 he participated in the first Bienal de São Paulo, where he was awarded an honorary mention. It was here that he first produced his Aparelhos cinecromáticos (kinechromatic devices), electronic sculptures in the form of light boxes made of everyday and inexpensive materials such as wood, light bulbs, lenses, colored fabric, miniature motors, and electronic circuitry that programmed the lighting system within the boxes. Sequencia Visual S-51 is one such kinechromatic device that creates a dynamic of movement and color using the aforementioned technological tools, generating patterns and changes in light and colour through an organized system of reflective lenses and light bulbs inside the box.
Though deeply engaged in exploring the relations between art and technology, for Palatnik these works were still inscribed in an exploration of painterly issues, albeit with a new set of tools. In 1951, Mario Pedrosa described Palatnik, specifically in regard to his participation in the I Bienal de São Paulo, as a pioneering artist who following the steps of Moholy-Nagy had decided to use light as a medium. It was not only the innovation of the medium that interested Pedrosa but also Palatnik's exploration of structure, duration, and space, that would inscribe him within the paradigm of invention that characterized the formal experimentation of Brazilian artists in the 1950s and 1960s.
Julieta González, curator
Abraham Palatnik is internationally recognized as one of the pioneers of kinetic art. He was born in Natal in Rio Grande do Norte in Northeast Brazil in 1928, and moved as a child with his family to Palestine, where as a teenager he took courses in mechanics, physics and art. He returned to Brazil in 1947 and settled in Rio, where he met Almir Mavignier who introduced him to the workshops being carried out by Dr. Nise da Silveira with psychiatric patients at the Hospital Dom Pedro (Engenho de dentro). During this same period he met Mario Pedrosa who introduced him to Gestalt psychology. These experiences would be formative in the definition of the future directions his work would take (as much as they were for Mavignier and Serpa, also involved in the workshops). Palatnik would later state that being exposed to the art of these psychiatric patients made him rethink his approach to art and his exploration of new visual languages and forms.
In 1951 he participated in the first Bienal de São Paulo, where he was awarded an honorary mention. It was here that he first produced his Aparelhos cinecromáticos (kinechromatic devices), electronic sculptures in the form of light boxes made of everyday and inexpensive materials such as wood, light bulbs, lenses, colored fabric, miniature motors, and electronic circuitry that programmed the lighting system within the boxes. Sequencia Visual S-51 is one such kinechromatic device that creates a dynamic of movement and color using the aforementioned technological tools, generating patterns and changes in light and colour through an organized system of reflective lenses and light bulbs inside the box.
Though deeply engaged in exploring the relations between art and technology, for Palatnik these works were still inscribed in an exploration of painterly issues, albeit with a new set of tools. In 1951, Mario Pedrosa described Palatnik, specifically in regard to his participation in the I Bienal de São Paulo, as a pioneering artist who following the steps of Moholy-Nagy had decided to use light as a medium. It was not only the innovation of the medium that interested Pedrosa but also Palatnik's exploration of structure, duration, and space, that would inscribe him within the paradigm of invention that characterized the formal experimentation of Brazilian artists in the 1950s and 1960s.
Julieta González, curator