The Magic of a Traffic Light: Edgar Negrets Magic Machinesi Ana Franco

PhD Candidate Institute of Fine Arts, New York University

One day I saw a street light in New York that with a simple change of lights could stop, guide, control and lead the aggressive crowds of New York. That a red light made them stop. And that a green light made them move, seemed to me an amazing thing that reminded me of Greek gods Thats how I see the machine yes, I still see the machines like a primitive man.ii Geometric abstraction in Latin America has recently received a great deal of attention. Yet its development in Colombia has not been sufficiently studied.iii The focus of this paper is the work of one of its pioneers in Colombia, Edgar Negret (b.1920). Besides introducing geometric abstraction, Negret brought modern sculpture to Colombia, paving the road for the internationalization of Colombian art. The paper focuses on the series of sculptures Magic Machines of 1957, which represent a turning point in Negret's artistic career. It interprets these sculptures in light of the artists experiences in New York and his close relationships with well-known American artists. Unlike other Latin American countries, such as Brazil and Argentina, geometric abstraction in Colombia did not develop within the context of local artistic movements. Rather, it was the product of individual artistic investigations resulting from the departure of a handful of artists to Europe and the United States. This situation has encouraged scholars to study the works of these artists as isolated phenomena.iv This paper is part of a more general attempt to challenge this view. It argues that Negrets approach to geometric abstraction needs to be understood in connection to the American (and European) artistic developments with which he became familiar during the 1950s. More precisely, it is argued that Negrets sculptures are a product of his active

involvement with the artistic community at the time and part of his attempt to incorporate the legacy of the previous generation of New York-based artists. In this respect, the Magic Machines show the dialogue held by Negret with the two generations of artists that dominated the New York art scene in the 1940s and 1950s. On one hand, the mechanical dimension of these works, expressed in the use of geometric abstraction and industrial techniques and materials (aluminum sheets assembled by nuts and bolts), reveals Negrets contact with a group of artists that in the late 1950s rejected the expressive and emotional content of art. On the other hand, the magical dimension through which Negret interprets the machine, derives from his interest in Native American art, and connects him to the aesthetic ideals of the generation of artists working in the 1940s.

The New York Transformation

Negret arrived in New York in 1949 after finishing his artistic training in Colombia.v The city must have been a great shock for him. He came from Popayn, a Colombian city with 350,000 people that seemed to be trapped in the previous century.vi New York, with a population of almost 8 million (Manhattan alone had around 2 million), constituted an entirely new world.vii To him, the city was the embodiment of a futuristic metropolis: he was dazzled by the skyscrapers, the traffic lights, the billboards, the neon-lights, and the crowds of people on the streets. Negrets initial years in New York (1949-1951) were marked by a profound artistic transformation. Upon his arrival, he enrolled at The Sculpture Center, an

experimental workshop for sculptors, where he discovered new techniques and materials, in particular, iron-wire and metal sheets. This discovery was especially important for him. At the time, the only available materials for sculptors in Colombia were stone and bronze, and the techniques were limited to carving and casting. At the Center, as the artist recalls, he discovered that the material itself doesnt have any special sign, rather, it is the artist who makes it noble or not.viii The impact of this discovery can be appreciated in Negrets explorations during these initial years in New York. Vase with Flower of 1949 and The Nest of 1950 are good examples of how he started to combine metal sheets and iron-wire in highly abstract compositions. In Vase with Flower twisted iron-wire assumes the abstract linear form of a flower in a vase, whereas in The Nest, a bird is suggested by a flat sheet of aluminum and the nest by a single iron-wire. Both works stand in contrast with Negrets sculptures from the early 1940s. Although he had already worked in Popayn with semi-abstract figures, these early sculptures were characteristically heavy and volumetric, much like the sculptures of Henry Moore that he had become acquainted with via reproductions (for instance The Hand of God of 1944). This transformation situated Negret close to what other artists were doing in New York at the time. One remarkable coincidence is with David Smith, who in the late 1940s and early 1950s was also creating sculptures using metal and suggestive linear forms, such as Royal Bird of 1948 and Australia of 1951. It is not clear whether Negret was acquainted with Smiths work during this time. The similarity of their artistic practices, however, shows the extent to which Negrets new approach to sculpture allowed him to fit within New Yorks artistic circles. A further confirmation is the success of his first

solo-show in New York at the Peridot Gallery during the spring of 1950, which received favorable reviews in the New York Times and The New York Herald.ix

Geometry and Machines in Europe

In 1951 Negret embarked on a five-year trip through France and Spain. The trip was significant for him in two respects: first, in Paris he definitively abandoned the figurative mode of his previous works and embraced the language of geometric abstraction; and second, in Mallorca, impressed by the ships on the harbor and the work of artisans in iron, Negret adopted the language of machinery to refer to his sculptures and adopted metal as his preferred material. Negret lived in Paris between 1951 and 1953. During those years he became close friends with Americans Ellsworth Kelly and Jack Youngerman, and Venezuelans Jess Rafael Soto and Alejandro Otero. He visited the studios of Constantin Brancusi and Jean Tinguely, who had a profound impact upon his work. And he frequented the circle of abstract artists gathered around the Salon de Ralits Nouvelles, where he exhibited in several opportunities.x More importantly, Negret had a solo-show at the Galerie Arnaud in 1951, which became an important exhibition space for emerging artists in Paris. The results of Negrets contact with the Parisian artworld can be seen in the sculptures he executed in Mallorca between 1953 and 1954. Acoustic Construction I and Acoustic Construction II, both of 1953, consist of welded pieces of industrial material, mainly pipes and sheets of aluminum cut in geometric shapes that resemble some sort of machine. The geometric language of these sculptures shows how important it had been

for Negret to be involved with the abstract artists in Paris. Negrets allusion to the mechanical, on the other hand, parallels the machine aesthetic of Tinguelys pieces.

New York after Pollock

Negret returned to New York in 1956, around the time of Pollocks death. If during his first visit to the city Abstract Expressionism dominated New Yorks artistic world, at the time of his second visit the artistic scene was increasingly moving toward a critical questioning of the definition and limits of art.xi Further, artists were divided regarding the legacy of the New York School of painters. Thus, as David Joselit explains, the legacy of Abstract Expressionism led in at least two ostensibly contradictory directions toward an increasingly severe formalism, and toward a performative erasure of distinction between aesthetic and social space.xii The first direction was exemplified by the achievements of abstract artists who dwelled on the impersonal nature of the artistic gesture. The works of artists such as Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Ad Reinhardt and Frank Stella characterized the new approach to abstraction. The second direction was epitomized by Allan Kaprows idea that the primary source of artistic inspiration was the city itself, and the incorporation of everyday objects into aesthetic space. For Kaprow, the artist had to become preoccupied with and even dazzled by the space and objects of our everyday life, either our bodies, clothes, rooms, or, if need be, the vastness of Forty-Second Street.xiii Back in New York Negret found himself immersed in this complex artworld. In fact, his Magic Machines have important connections with both kinds of reactions to

Abstract Expressionism. They embody the new approach to abstraction and, at the same time, they were inspired in the mechanical world of New York. Upon his arrival Negret again contacted Kelly and Youngerman, who had returned to the city in 1954 and 1956, respectively. The artists had set up their studios in Coenties Slip and were joined, soon after, by Robert Indiana and Agnes Martin. This informal artistic group shared the rejection of the subjective and gestural qualities of Abstract Expressionism and favored a cool, depersonalized approach to art.xiv Their approach was manifested in the use of hard-edged geometric shapes and a restricted color palette. Kellys Tripcot of 1957, Youngermans Black Blue of 1961, and Indianas Melville of 1961 are good examples of this.xv Negrets Magic Machines share much with this kind of reaction to Abstract Expressionism. His medium is certainly different from the one used by the artists of Coenties Slip he was a sculptor and they were mainly painters. Yet his work is close to theirs in various respects. Negret used mostly geometric shapes and primary colors in the construction of his pieces. Magic Machine No. 14, for example, consists of a vertical pedestal painted in dark blue and a complex structure of geometric planes in the same color, in addition to gray and a lighter blue piece and circular forms in red, which are projected horizontally at the top of the sculpture. Magic Machine and Equinox is a wall-relief and in general is less rigidly structured than the free-standing version. In it, however, Negret used the same abstract geometric language and a restricted color palette. The cold and impersonal approach to abstraction is also present in the Magic Machines. This can be seen in Negrets adoption of industrial materials and techniques and the lusterless quality of the pigments he used. For the Magic Machines Negret used

aluminum sheets that were cut and folded in geometric shapes. The pieces were assembled through clearly visible nuts and bolts, and were painted with matte colors. Like the artists of Coenties Slip, Negret used these elements to negate the gestural, hot approach to artistic composition. A final evidence of the connection between Negret and these artists comes from Kellys own experiments in sculpture. In 1959, just a couple years after Negret initiated his aluminum works, Kelly created Pony and Gate using the same technique and materials as Negret had used in his machines. Although Kelly and Negrets sculptures differ greatly in their inspiration and aims, it is evident that they share common grounds.xvi The Magic Machines, on the other hand, also incorporate the reaction to Abstract Expressionism epitomized by Kaprows idea that the artist should allow himself to be dazzled by the space and objects of our everyday life and the vastness of FortySecond Street.xvii For Negret, the Magic Machines expressed his fascination with New York City and its mechanical world: with its lights, the subway system, the traffic, the ships.xviii Indeed, as he describes it, the inspiration for the machines was the city itself: the series of Magic Machines that I executed there [in New York] for 10 years [sic] had a lot to do with that mechanical world of New York. xix The impact that this mechanical world had on Negrets work was not restricted to the way he chose to describe his sculptures, namely, as machines. The sculptures themselves also incorporate the references to mechanical devices. The assemblage of pieces in Magic Machine and Magic Machine (Wall-relief), for instance, bring to mind mechanical forms such as the hidden mechanisms of a clock; whereas in Magic Machine

No. 14 the vertical pedestal juxtaposed to the horizontal structure on top recalls streetsigns, like the ones that signal the names of streets and avenues. One significant aspect of Negrets engagement with the technological world of New York is his experiences in the harbor. The ships in Mallorca had already inspired him to adopt the machine aesthetic for his sculptures of the mid-1950s. In New York he also frequently visited the harbor, and it became a source for his Magic Machines. In particular, the use of matte pigments to paint the aluminum sheets of his pieces derives from Negrets experience in the harbor. As he recalls, When I was in New York I frequently visited the harbor. I was fascinated by the harbor with all those ships and their wonderful lines that are also expressive and I always saw that they painted them: first in red, then white, then black. The sailors always, always fighting against the oxidation of metal then it became natural for me to see the metal like that, painted, covered.xx The Encounter with Native American Art

The mechanical aspect of the Magic Machines incorporates the two directions in which the artistic world in New York moved after the boom of Abstract Expressionism: the cool and the inclusion of the city itself into aesthetic space. Yet, next to this technological aspect, there is another equally important element in Negrets sculptures: the magical. This aspect places them within the context of primitive art forms. It connects Negrets artistic interests with those of the previous generation of artists in New York who, like him, were fascinated with Native American art. Negrets interest in primitive art can be traced back to the influence of two of his most important mentors: the Spanish sculptor Jorge Oteiza and the American sculptor

Louise Nevelson. Negret met Oteiza in Popayn in the 1940s, where he studied the ritual objects and artifacts in the archeological site of San Agustn. In fact, throughout his career Oteiza expressed an interest in pre-Columbian art, particularly, the notions of spirituality expressed in it. For him, the artists mission was to rehabilitate the religious and ultimately ethical function of the work of art,xxi which for him was the most important characteristic of primitive art. Negret, on the other hand, met Nevelson at The Sculpture Center during his first visit to New York. She had started teaching there in the mid 1940s, after returning from a trip to Mexico, where she studied the ancient art and architecture of Mayan and Aztec cultures. The friendship between her and Negret was, very likely, formed during those days. Thus, when Negret arrived in New York for a second time, he set up set his studio on a warehouse in midtown Manhattan close to Nevelsons home, where she displayed her collection of Native North American and pre-Columbian art. Negrets interest in primitive art consolidated throughout the 1950s. In Paris he frequently visited the Muse de lhomme and its collection of pre-Columbian arts. In New York he had access to the large collections of Native American art housed in the Museum of the American Indian and the American Museum of Natural History. Importantly, shortly after his second arrival in New York, Negret received a UNESCO scholarship to travel west to study Native American art. There is very little information about this trip. Most scholars suggest that Negret was interested specifically in the sand-paintings of the Navajos, and the cliff-dwellings of the Pueblos. xxii Negrets closest family report that he visited the Mesa Verde Park, and the artist himself recalls his witnessing of a Navajo healing ceremony. The works

executed by Negret after his return from this trip, however, are evidence of his contact with specific elements of the Pueblo culture, in particular the Hopi, rather than with the Navajos. His Masks, his Cliff-dwellings but, especially, his Kachinas are good examples of how influential the art of the Pueblo was for his future work.xxiii

The Magic of a Traffic Light

Negrets decision to study Native North American art, instead of pre-Columbian cultures of South America, may seem surprising. Other Latin American artists, starting with Joaqun Torres-Garca and including his fellow countryman Eduardo RamrezVillamizar, had made efforts to incorporate into geometric abstraction the art of preColumbian cultures, which were somehow thought by them to be closer to their own background. Negrets choice, however, was clearly not guided by nationalistic considerations.xxiv It was, rather, motivated by his engagement with the New Yorks artistic community that surrounded him. The fascination with Native American art had defined the aesthetic ideals of the generation of artists working in New York in the 1940s, and Negret was acutely aware of this. During the 1940s, Abstract Expressionists and the Indian Space Painters sought sources for their art in both modern and ancient art forms.xxv They were interested in European modernisms and, to this extent, they adapted the strategies and visual languages of movements such as Cubism and Surrealism. At the same time, they aspired to create an art that was essentially American. Key to this latter endeavor was the incorporation of art of Native American people, specifically Northwest Coast Indian art. As Michael Leja

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argues, the evocation of Native American art became an effective and widely used means of binding artistic projects derived from European traditions to the American soil and spirit, thereby differentiating them from European work.xxvi Negret was obviously not moved by these nationalistic considerations. There was, however, another aspect of Native American Art that greatly appealed to him: its spiritual content. This second aspect had already attracted Abstract Expressionists, whose work was very likely known by Negret. Jackson Pollock and David Smith, for instance, were driven to study Native American art because of their interest in the unconscious and its power to reveal the hidden aspects of human nature. Whereas the Mythmakers (Mark Rothko, Adolph Gottlieb, Clyfford Still, and Barnett Newman) saw in the terror and tragedy of the myths referenced in Northwest Coast Indian art the fears and threats faced by modern men.xxvii Like these artists, Negret thought it was necessary to re-establish a special kinship between the primitive and the modern man. The magical dimension of the Magic Machines was meant to accomplish this. For Negret, who came from the Popayn of the 1940s, the machine was not the product of a rational mind, but rather a miracle that modern men did not recognize as such. As he explained, I still see the machines like a primitive man I still see the world with primitive eyes, Im not interested in technology as a functional thing, I see it like that, like a miracle.xxviii Negrets amazement at the simple effect of a traffic light on New Yorks aggressive crowd reveals the peculiarity of this approach: he did not see the machine in its simple mechanical function, but rather as a magical object, a modern miracle of science and technology.

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The Magic Machines are thus comparable to primitive ritual artifacts. Negret conceived these machines as devices that, like ritualistic and religious objects, would serve to understand and control the world, in this case the technological world. Not surprisingly, he thought that his mission as an artist was to to clarify [and] make intelligible the complex and seemingly chaotic world in which we live.xxix When the Magic Machines were exhibited in 1959 at the David Herbert Gallery in New York, many understood that they were meant to be seen as ritualistic devices. Art critic Franklin Konigsberg, for example, described them as mans means to escape this world and penetrate the mysteries beyond. [Negrets] clear, vivid, polychrome wood and aluminum constructions are a modern realization of creations secret harmonies.xxx Similarly, critic Lawrence Campbell, writing in Art News in November of 1959, saw Negrets work as a kind of Neolithic art expressing the spirit of the machines age.xxxi

Conclusions

Negrets Magic Machines belong to two contradictory worlds: the mechanical and the magical. The mechanical world is embodied in the materials and techniques used in the fabrication of the sculptures as well as in Negrets use of a rational, geometric language proper of modernity. In this respect, he aligned himself with a cluster of artists, such as Ellsworth Kelly, Jack Youngerman, and Robert Indiana, who opposed the highly expressive, subjective and almost irrational nature of the art characteristic of Abstract Expressionism.

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The magical world, on the other hand, is expressed in Negrets attempt to transform the machines into apparatuses for the expression of the spiritual. Such a transformation resulted from his engagement with sculptors Jorge Oteiza and Louise Nevelson, with whom he shared an interest in primitive art forms. More importantly, it resulted from his investigation of the native cultures of the west of the United Sates, in particular, the Pueblo. In this respect, Negret was closer to the aesthetic ideals of some of the most prominent Abstract Expressionists, who had also referenced Native North American art in their own work of the early 1940s. The Magic Machines, thus, illustrate how despite the absence of major artistic movements in Colombia in the 1950s, Negrets work was not an isolated phenomenon. It was, instead, engaged with larger trans-national and trans-historical artistic developments. Ultimately, however, the Magic Machines reveal Negrets somehow paradoxical attitude towards the industrialized world and the art of New York. In the first place, Negret embraced that world, yet he still described himself as a primitive, looking at the machine as a miracle, rather than a product of a rational intellect. Secondly, while other artists in New York were questioning the definition and the boundaries of art through the language of geometric abstraction and industrial materials, Negret used that same language and materials in his Magic Machines to advocate for a return to a primordial meaning of art: the artwork as a ritualistic, magical object that connects men with the hidden forces of nature.

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Samper Pizano, Daniel et. al. Negret: Uno, dos y tres. Bogot: Talleres Itlgraf, 1983. Schaafsma, Polly. Kachinas in the Pueblo World. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994. Sculpture by Edgar Negret. Exh. Cat. May 22-June 27, 1972. Chicago: The Arts Club of Chicago, 1972. Sims, Patterson and Emily Rauh Pulitzer. Ellsworth Kelly, Sculpture. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1982. Stringer, John. Introduction. 25 aos despues: Robert Indiana, Ellsworth Kelly, Agnes Martin, Edgar Negret, Louise Nevelson, Jack Youngerman: Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogot,, septiembre, 1979. Bogot: El Museo, 1979. Traba, Marta. Seis artistas contemporneos colombianos. Bogot: Antares, 1963. ---------------. Negret, In Prisma, (Bogot), No. 6 (Junio-Julio, 1957). Waldman, Diane. Jack Youngerman. New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1986. ------------------------------------. Ellsworth Kelly: A Retrospective. New York: Guggenheim Museum: Distributed by H.N. Abrams, 1996. Warburg, Aby. Images from the Region of the Pueblo Indians of North America. In Preziosi, Donald (ed.). The Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1998, 182. Wilson, Sarah. Paris: Capital of the arts, 1900-1968. New York and London: Royal Academy of Arts; distributed in the U.S. by Harry N. Abrams, 2002.

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This paper is part of my PhD dissertation titled The Rise of Modernism in Colombia: Internationalism and Abstraction in the Work of Edgar Negret and Eduardo Ramrez-Villamizar. The dissertation attempts to make a historical reconstruction of the career of Edgar Negret (b. 1920) and Eduardo Ramrez-Villamizar (19232004), starting with their sojourns to Europe and America in the 1950s throughout the 1970s in Colombia. The purpose is to interpret the birth of Colombian abstract geometric sculpture in relation to the artistic production in Paris and New York, with an eye towards understanding the subsequent development of modern art in Colombia. ii Edgar Negret. Interview, in Fausto Panesso, Botero, Grau, Negret, Obregn, Ramrez: los intocables. Bogot: Ediciones Alcaravan, 1975, 69. All translations from this text are mine. iii Several exhibitions have presented large samples of the development of geometric abstraction in Uruguay, Venezuela, Brazil, and Argentina, but none of them have included Negret or any other Colombian artist. Some of these exhibitions include: Geometric Abstraction: Latin American Art from the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection (Fogg Art Museum of the Harvard University Art Museums, 2001); Inverted Utopias: Avant-garde Art in Latin America (The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2004); The Sites of Latin American Abstraction (Cisneros-Fontanals Foundation, Miami, 2006-7); The Geometry of Hope: Latin American Abstract Art from the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection (Blanton Museum of Art, University of Austin, Texas; Grey Art Gallery, New York University, 2007), and New Perspectives in Latin American Art, 19302006: Selections from a Decade of Acquisitions (Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2007-2008). iv This is the case of Galaor Carbonells Negret. Las etapas creativas and Jos Mara Salvadors De la mquina al mito, the most comprehensive studies of Negrets work, which provide a detailed formal account of his sculptures, but fail to situate them within the broader contexts of New York and Paris. v Negret studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cal, Colombia, between 1938 and 1944. In the mid-1940s he met the Spanish sculptor Jorge Oteiza in Popayn, who introduced him to modern sculpture and aesthetic ideas through reproductions of Henry Moore and Julio Gonzlezs work. By the late 1940s, Negret worked mainly in plaster and created semi-abstract figures reminiscent of Moores sculptures. vi Dane statistics. http://www.dane.gov.co/files/censo2005/resultados_regiones.pdf Retrieved on 4/12/08 vii Demographics of New York City, Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_New_York_City#Historic_population_figures Retrieved on 4/12/08 viii Negret, Interview, in Panesso, Los intocables, 65. ix Stuart Preston, Diversily Modern. An Italian Contemporary and Americans, in The New York Times, May 21, 1950; and Carlyle Burrows, Art and Artists. Groups Downtown, in New York Herald Tribune, June 4, 1950. x Negret participated in the fifth and seventh Salon des Ralits Nouvelles in 1951 and 1952. xi Thomas Crow has characterized this position as follows: every serious artistic initiative became [in the late 1950s and early 1960s] a charged proposition about the nature and limits of art itself. Thomas Crow, The Rise of the Sixties, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. 11. xii David Joselit, Expanded Gestures: Painting of the 1950s, in American Art Since 1945, London and New York: Thames & Hudson, 2003. 34. xiii Allan Kaprow, The Legacy of Jackson Pollock, quoted in Crow, The Rise of the Sixties, 33. Kaprows own Happenings and Robert Rauschenbergs Combines are good examples of the different ways in which artists attempted to incorporate the city and the everyday object into aesthetic space. xiv See Mildred Glimcher, Coenties Slip, Indiana, Kelly, Martin, Rosenquist, Youngerman at Coenties Slip; and John Stringer, Introduction in 25 aos despues: Robert Indiana, Ellsworth Kelly, Agnes Martin, Edgar Negret, Louise Nevelson, Jack Youngerman. Youngerman explains that Down there [in Coenties Slip], one of the things we were very conscious of, without talking that much about it was the fact that we all knew that we werent part of the de Kooning/Pollock legacy in art which was centered around Tenth Street. Quoted in Glimcher, Coentries Slip, in Indiana, Kelly, Martin, Rosenquist, Youngerman at Coenties Slip. New York: Pace Gallery, 1993, 8. xv Indianas approach differs from Kelly and Youngermans in his use of lettering taken from advertisement and street-signs, which brings him closer to the Pop generation of the 1960s. However, he shares with the Coenties Slip artists the use of clear-cut geometric shapes and a restricted color composition. He

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acknowledges these affinities when he claims that Kelly simply made me aware of the use of primary colors and hard edges. Quoted in Glimcher, Coenties Slip, 10. xvi It is important to note here that Negret and Kelly were not the only ones using painted aluminum sheet in the construction of their sculptures. In fact, Alexander Calder had been using this material since the late 1930s, and he was certainly an important source of inspiration for both artists. Kelly met Calder in Paris in 1953, and it is likely that Negret also met him at that time. Both artists had acknowledged the significance of Calders work for their own practice. xvii Kaprow, The Legacy of Jackson Pollock, in Crow, The Rise of the Sixties, 33. xviii In this respect, Negrets attitude toward New York is also close to Indianas, who used the language of ships, trucks, railroads and billboards as sources for his paintings. Indiana claims, every ship that passed on the river, every tug, every barge, every railroad car on every flatboat, every truck passed below on the ship carried these marks and legends that set the style of my painting. Quoted in Glimcher, Coenties Slip, 10. xix Negret, Interview, in Panesso, Los intocables, 69. xx Ibid. 69. xxi Magrit Rowell, A Timeless Modernism, in Oteiza: propsito experimental = an experimental proposition. Madrid: Fundacin Caja de Pensiones, 1998, 16. xxii See Galaor Carbonell, Negret. Las estapas creativas; Fausto Panesso, Los intocables; and Carlos Castillo, Notas para el anlisis sociolgico de la obra de Edgar Negret. xxiii In my dissertation I explore in detail the connection between Negrets Kachinas and Masks, and the ritual artifacts and ceremonies of the Pueblo culture, in particular the Kachina cult. There are important formal similarities between Negrets works and Pueblo art forms, but the most significant aspect for him was the Pueblo belief that ritualistic objects perform a spiritual union between men and gods. This aspect permeates Negrets work of the late 1950s and early 1960s, including his Magic Machines. xxiv It is important to note here that Ramrez-Villamizars interest in South American pre-Columbian art, like Negrets fascination with Native North American art, did not arise either from nationalistic considerations. Ramrez-Villamizar, however, was acutely aware that his use of pre-Columbian art had strong links with a specific Colombian past. I discuss this issue in more detail in my dissertation. xxv The Indian Space Painters group flourished in New York at about the same time as Abstract Expressionism in the early 1940s. The group included artists Robert Barrel, Peter Busa and Steve Wheeler, whose goal was to surpass Picassos Cubism by developing a new pictorial space inspired by Native art from both Americas. They shared with Abstract Expressionism the interest in Native American art and the desire to create abstract, all-over compositions. The notoriety of the latter group, however, has overshadowed the achievements of the Indian Space Painters. See Sandra Kraskin, Indian Space Painters; and Ann Gibson, Painting Outside the Paradigm: Indian Space. xxvi Michael Leja, Reframing Abstract Expressionism: Subjectivity and Painting in the 1940s. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993, 87. xxvii See, Leja, Refraiming Abstract Expressionism; and Jackson Rushing, Native American Art and the New York Avant-garde: A History of Cultural Primitivism. xxviii Negret, Interview, in Panesso, Los Intocables, 69-74. xxix Ibid. 69 xxx Franklin Konigsberg, Presentation, Edgar Negret, Exh. Cat. David Herbert Gallery, Fall 1959. xxxi Lawrence Campbell, Reviews and Previews. Edgar Negret, Art News, vol. 58, no. 7, November, 1959, 14-15.

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