NEW YORK, September 12 /PRNewswire/ --

The Grey Art Gallery at New York University opens a major exhibition
comprising more than 100 works of art from the acclaimed Coleccion Patricia
Phelps de Cisneros (CPPC). Together, the exhibition, which remains on view
through December 8, and its important catalogue provide a comprehensive
scholarly overview of Latin American Geometric Abstraction from the 1930s to
the 1970s. In addition, NYU and the Grey have organized an exceptional agenda
of interdisciplinary public programs that will greatly enrich the experience
of the exhibition; these will take place at NYU throughout the fall.

The Geometry of Hope: Latin American Abstract Art from the Patricia
Phelps de Cisneros Collection was organized by the Blanton Museum of Art at
The University of Texas at Austin, where it was seen earlier this year and
encompassed some 130 works. The exhibition and its catalogue were the
culminating project of the Cisneros Graduate Research Seminar at The
University of Texas, a multi-year scholarly collaboration between the New
York- and Caracas-based CPPC and the Blanton. The Seminar was headed by
Gabriel Perez-Barreiro, Blanton curator of Latin American Art and organizer
of the exhibition.

Exhibition

The Geometry of Hope focuses on key cities in the development of
abstraction in the Americas: Montevideo (1930s), Buenos Aires (1940s), Sao
Paulo (1950s), Rio de Janeiro (1950s-60s), Paris (1960s), and Caracas
(1960s-70s). In tracing the development of ideas from one socio-geographic
context to another, the exhibition challenges the view of Latin American art
as a single phenomenon.

The exhibition includes work by approximately forty artists, including
Joaquin Torres-Garcia, from Montevideo; Gyula Kosice and Tomas Maldonado,
from Buenos Aires; Geraldo de Barros and Waldemar Cordeiro, from Sao Paulo;
Helio Oiticica and Lygia Clark, from Rio de Janeiro; and Jesus Rafael Soto
and Carlos Cruz-Diez, from Paris and Caracas.

Publication

The Geometry of Hope is accompanied by a richly illustrated, 300-page,
bilingual (English-Spanish) publication, published by the Blanton Museum of
Art. This includes an introduction by Dr. Perez-Barreiro, scholarly essays on
each of the cities explored in the exhibition, and extended essays presenting
new research on forty works of art.

Symposium and Public Programs

Grey Art Gallery and NYU Dean for the Humanities and Professor of Fine
Arts Edward Sullivan have organized the series of public programs: The
Geometry of Hope: Abstraction as Cultural Expression-a Campus-wide
Initiative. The series is centered around a daylong international symposium
on October 5, 2007, in which eleven scholars will debate elements of
aesthetic production from the 1930s to the 1970s, examining works by artists
represented in the exhibition and by other key figures in the history of
modern Latin American art. The programs also include such events as readings
by Latin American poets who created poems specifically based on artworks in
the exhibition; a two-part concert series, "New Sounds of Latin America"; a
lecture on Latin American expatriates in Cold War Paris; and much more. For
more information, visit www.nyu.edu/greyart.

Sponsorship

Generous funding for the exhibition is provided by the Eugene McDermott
Foundation. The presentation at the Grey Art Gallery has been made possible,
in part, by the Abby Weed Grey Trust. The catalogue and public programs are
made possible by the support of the Fundacion Cisneros, with additional
program funding provided by the Grey's Inter/National Council, a Visual Arts
Initiative Award from the New York University's Coordinating Council for
Visual Arts, the New York University Humanities Initiative, and Professor
Herman Berkman.

Grey Art Gallery

Grey Art Gallery is NYU's fine-arts museum, located on historic
Washington Square Park in New York City's Greenwich Village. Exhibitions and
programs at the Gallery focus on art's historical, cultural, and social
contexts, with special emphasis on experimentation and interpretation. The
Grey's exhibitions have encompassed painting, sculpture, drawing and
printmaking, photography, architecture and decorative arts, video, film, and
performance. In addition to producing its own exhibitions, which often travel
in the United States and abroad, the Gallery hosts traveling shows that might
otherwise not be seen in New York. For additional information, please visit
www.nyu.edu/greyart.

Coleccion Patricia Phelps de Cisneros

The Caracas- and New York-based Coleccion Patricia Phelps de Cisneros
focuses on modern and contemporary art from Latin America, and includes as
well Latin American landscapes from the seventeenth century to the present
day and Venezuelan colonial art. Works from the CPPC form the basis of
diverse educational and public programming, ranging from programs for
teachers and students to international symposia. The CPPC's flagship
educational program is Piensa en Arte, which uses art to build students'
observational, expressive-language, and critical-thinking skills. For
additional information, visit www.coleccioncisneros.org.

Web site: http://www.coleccioncisneros.org
              http://www.nyu.edu/greyart