Wifredo Lam : the imagination at work / organized in partnership with Gary Nader ; with contributions by Kaira M. Cabañas, Alexander Alberro, Alexandra Chang, Samantha Noël, Michaëla de Lacaze Mohrmann, Andria Hickey.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Alberro, Alexander, writer of foreword.

Hickey, Andria, 1979- writer of afterword.

Lam, Wifredo

Nader, Gary Nicolás.

Cabañas, Kaira Marie, 1974-

Chang, Alexandra.

Noël, Samantha A., 1977-

Mohrmann, Michaëla

Pace Gallery, issuing body.

Rosengarten Family Fund.

Meridian Printing.

Standardized Title:

Wifredo Lam (Pace Gallery)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Lam, Wifredo--Exhibitions.

Lam, Wifredo.

Genre:

Exhibition catalogs.

Physical Description:

173 pages : color illustrations, portraits ; 30 cm

Distribution:

New York, NY : Artbook D.A.P.

Manufacture:

East Greenwich, RI : Meridian Printing

Other Title:

Imagination at work

Place of Publication:

New York : Pace [2022]

Summary:

This chronological survey traces the Cuban painter and sculptor Wifredo Lam's (1902-82) career from the late 1930s to the '70s, spotlighting the radically syncretic visual language he developed in response to modernism's Eurocentricity. Born to a Chinese father and Congolese Iberian mother, Lam placed heritage centrally in his work. Early in his career, he associated with major figures such as Picasso, Matisse and Braque, and he was struck by their integration of African iconography. Although he greatly respected these European artists, the dissonance between their aesthetic choices and cultural experience was not lost on him--especially given the racism and exploitation that characterized Cuban society under the US-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. Lam spent the rest of his career endeavoring to decolonize modernist art. From his early Surrealist works to his later preference for geometric abstraction, African sculpture and the Afro-Caribbean diaspora consistently informed his practice. Published for an exhibition at Pace, The Imagination at Work includes paintings, works on paper and rarely seen bronze sculptures, as well as a biography of Lam's life and career by the Latin American art scholar and curator Michaëla de Lacaze Mohrmann, who made curatorial contributions to the gallery's exhibition.

Contents:

Foreword / Alexander Alberro

Essays: Circa 1940: animating intimate relations / Kaira M. Cabañas

Searching for Wifredo Lam: reclaiming, identities, and context / Alexandra Chang

The poetics of black-Cuban sovereignty in Wifredo Lam's art / Samantha A. Noël

Selected paintings

Selected sculptures

Lam's crossings and critical positions: a chronology / Michaëla de Lacaze Mohrmann

List of works

Afterword / Andria Hickey.

Notes:

"Published on occasion of Wifredo Lam: The Imagination at Work, November 10-December 18, 2021"--Colophon.

Includes bibliographical references.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Rosengarten Family Fund.

ISBN:

9781948701518

1948701510

OCLC:

1317679918