Constructing a Poetic Universe

Works by some of the most significant modern and contemporary artists from Latin America are presented in Constructing a Poetic Universe: The Diane and Bruce Halle Collection of Latin American Art, opening March 11, 2007 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The exhibition, guest curated by Beverly Adams, curator of the Diane and Bruce Halle Collection, features nearly 60 works from 1945 to 2006. Among the major artists represented are Felix González-Torres, Victor Grippo, Arturo Herrera, Alfredo Jaar, Guillermo Kuitca, Jac Leirner, Ana Mendieta, Gabriel Orozco, Doris Salcedo, Melanie Smith, Javier Téllez, Tunga, Pablo Vargas Lugo. The exhibition will be on view through June 10, 2007 in the museum’s Audrey Jones Beck Building, 5601 Main Street.

Constructing a Poetic Universe: The Diane and Bruce Halle Collection of Latin American Art is a selection from one of the leading private collections dedicated to the art of this region. In 1996, the Halles began assembling works by artists who have made significant cultural contributions to modern and contemporary art. Considering the enormity and diversity of this field, the geographic demarcation of the Halle collection is necessarily flexible and inclusive— making no attempt to fix a culturally-determined idea of this particular region. It is imagined as an open space for interaction where one can follow any number of paths.

Not chronological, geographically-bound or thematic, Constructing a Poetic Universe focuses instead on provisional and improvisational relationships that surface in the Halle collection. The eccentric survey of a private collection encourages unexpected dialogues between works beyond the chronological, cultural and contextual. Affinities between works—visual, conceptual, ideological, historical, or forced by proximity—provoke both resonance and tension. The ever-expanding web of associations created by the works in the Halle collection has the ability to create new fictions, new universes of Borgesian dimensions.

Catalogue A fully illustrated 288-page catalogue designed by Shiffman Design and distributed by Merrell Publishers accompanies the exhibition. The catalog is edited by Beverly Adams and features essays by Dr. Adams, Osvaldo Sánchez, and Gilbert Vicario, assistant curator of Latin American art at the MFAH, each addressing a specific topic related Latin American art and its reception. In addition, Juan Ledezma, Suely Rolnik, and Sônia Salzstein, provide focus essays on the work of Ana Mendieta, Tunga, and Mira Schendel respectively, key artists that have been collected in-depth by the Halle’s. An interview with Diane Halle by Mari Carmen Ramírez, the Wortham Curator of Latin American Art at the MFAH is also featured in this publication.

Constructing a Poetic Universe
The Diane and Bruce Halle Collection of Latin American Art
Kurator: Beverly Adams

mit Felix Gonzales-Torres, Victor Grippo, Arturo Herrera, Alfredo Jaar, Guillermo Kuitca, Jac Leirner, Ana Mendieta, Gabriel Orozco, Doris Salcedo, Melanie Smith, Javier Téllez, Tunga , Pablo Vargas Lugo ...