Raúl Lozza
Untitled (No. 315) [Sin título (Núm. 315)]1953

On view:

Geffen Galleries, Turmoil and Optimism in Latin America

Abstract vertical painting with four flat geometric shapes — red, orange, yellow, and blue — scattered across a pale blue ground, each casting a faint drop shadow

Artist or Maker: Raúl Lozza
Argentina, 1911-2008
Title: Untitled (No. 315) [Sin título (Núm. 315)]
Place Made: Argentina, Buenos Aires
Date Made: 1953
Medium: Relief and paint on wood
Dimensions: 35 3/4 × 22 3/4 in. (90.81 × 57.79 cm); framed: 36 × 22 3/4 × 1 1/2 in. (91.44 × 57.79 × 3.81 cm)
Credit Line: Purchased with funds provided by the Contemporary Art Acquisitions Fund and the Bernard and Edith Lewin Collection of Mexican Art Deaccession Fund
Accession Number: M.2008.253
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: Latin American Art
Curatorial Notes: Beginning in the mid-1940s, a number of artists in Buenos Aires sought to create artworks that bore no references to anything outside of the work itself. Raúl Lozza emerged as a major innovator, founding Perceptismo (Perceptivism), a movement based on three primary principles—open structure, the notion of the field, and Lozza’s new theory of color—that are evident in this 1953 work. Untitled (No. 315) consists of four individual monochromatic polygons mounted on a larger painted monochromatic board. The four polygons emerged from Lozza’s experiments with coplanals, open compositions of geometric forms that had no limiting frame and were instead presented on a wall as connected relief elements. Here, Lozza fixed these elements on a support that functioned as a portable wall or colored field. He first created a sketch, where he carefully mapped out the colors and forms according to mathematical principles and his color theory, which he called cualimetría. The artist considered a form’s color in relation to its size, shape, and dimensions to create an overall composition that lacks visual perspective and is perceived on a single plane.

Lozza developed his theories of Perceptismo after splitting from the group Asociación Arte Concreto-Invención (Concrete-Invention Art Association). He was joined in his new movement by his brothers as well as the philosopher and art critic Abraham Haber (1924–1986). Lozza gave Untitled (No. 315) to Haber as a wedding gift, a testament to their friendship and Haber’s championing of the artist and his ideas.

Rachel Kaplan

2024

Raúl Lozza
Untitled (No. 315) [Sin título (Núm. 315)]1953

On view:

Geffen Galleries, Turmoil and Optimism in Latin America

Artist or Maker: Raúl Lozza
Argentina, 1911-2008
Title: Untitled (No. 315) [Sin título (Núm. 315)]
Place Made: Argentina, Buenos Aires
Date Made: 1953
Medium: Relief and paint on wood
Dimensions: 35 3/4 × 22 3/4 in. (90.81 × 57.79 cm); framed: 36 × 22 3/4 × 1 1/2 in. (91.44 × 57.79 × 3.81 cm)
Credit Line: Purchased with funds provided by the Contemporary Art Acquisitions Fund and the Bernard and Edith Lewin Collection of Mexican Art Deaccession Fund
Accession Number: M.2008.253
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: Latin American Art
Curatorial Notes: Beginning in the mid-1940s, a number of artists in Buenos Aires sought to create artworks that bore no references to anything outside of the work itself. Raúl Lozza emerged as a major innovator, founding Perceptismo (Perceptivism), a movement based on three primary principles—open structure, the notion of the field, and Lozza’s new theory of color—that are evident in this 1953 work. Untitled (No. 315) consists of four individual monochromatic polygons mounted on a larger painted monochromatic board. The four polygons emerged from Lozza’s experiments with coplanals, open compositions of geometric forms that had no limiting frame and were instead presented on a wall as connected relief elements. Here, Lozza fixed these elements on a support that functioned as a portable wall or colored field. He first created a sketch, where he carefully mapped out the colors and forms according to mathematical principles and his color theory, which he called cualimetría. The artist considered a form’s color in relation to its size, shape, and dimensions to create an overall composition that lacks visual perspective and is perceived on a single plane.

Lozza developed his theories of Perceptismo after splitting from the group Asociación Arte Concreto-Invención (Concrete-Invention Art Association). He was joined in his new movement by his brothers as well as the philosopher and art critic Abraham Haber (1924–1986). Lozza gave Untitled (No. 315) to Haber as a wedding gift, a testament to their friendship and Haber’s championing of the artist and his ideas.

Rachel Kaplan

2024