Hutchinson Modern & Contemporary is pleased to announce: Emilio Rodríguez-Larraín: Ancestral Landscapes, a highly anticipated exhibition that marks the artist's posthumous return to New York City after nearly 60 years. Opening on Thursday, October 19th, the exhibit will showcase a selection of rare paintings from 1959-1964, spotlighting a unique aspect of the artist’s legacy. To offer a more in-depth exploration of Rodríguez-Larraín’s rich and versatile oeuvre, an online Study Room at hutchinsonmodern.com will accompany the show and feature never-before-seen archival documents and text by the esteemed American scholar Michele Greet.
Emilio Rodríguez-Larraín (1928-2015) is widely regarded as one of the most important Peruvian artists of his generation. A visual artist, trained as an architect, Rodríguez-Larraín spent nearly half of his life abroad between France, Spain, Italy, and the USA. Over the course of an illustrious career spanning seven decades, he exhibited hundreds of times and received numerous prestigious awards, such as the William and Noma Copley Grant (1965), the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship (1976), and the DAAD Artist-in-Residence Program Grant (1985). Today, his work can be found in major art institutions worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, the Musée de la Ville de Paris in Paris, and the Bunkamura Museum of Art in Tokyo; and in important private and corporate art collections, such as JPMorgan Chase, Northern Trust Bank, and NBC. As a testament to his significance, in 1991, he was selected to participate in the group show Man Ray and his Friends, exhibiting alongside Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, and Salvador Dalí, among other prominent 20th-century artists. Due to his prolific and multifaceted art practice, encompassing painting, sculpture, installation, and land art, he was chosen to represent Peru in three editions of the Venice Biennale (1960, 1964, 1972), was awarded Peru's highest honor for a visual artist, the Premio Tecnoquímica (2006), and bestowed three retrospectives in Lima, Peru (2002, 2007, 2016).
Emilio Rodríguez-Larraín: Ancestral Landscapes includes paintings exhibited at the Venice Biennale (1964) and MoMA (1967, 1969) and spotlights work that draws inspiration from Peruvian indigenous culture and beyond. These paintings are idiosyncratic manifestations of Ancestralismo, a movement seeking inspiration in abstract motifs from pre-Hispanic art. Rodríguez-Larraín fused his knowledge of informalist trends in Europe (Tachisme and Art Informel in France and Arte Povera in Italy) with allusions to the textures, patterns, and shapes of ancient Andean art to create a unique iteration of abstraction that evokes his Peruvian cultural heritage and demonstrates his respect for the ancient builders of “Pirú” (Peru).
