Abraham Palatnik

Background

Abraham Palatnik was born on February 19, 1928 in Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil.

Education

In 1932, Palatnik moved to Tel Aviv where he took a specialized course in Internal Combustion Engines at the Montefiore School while studying painting, drawing, and art history at the Municipal Art Institute.

Career

A pioneer of kinetic art in Brazil, Abraham's investigations into technology, mobility, and light led to a groundbreaking understanding of visual phenomena. In 1947, Palatnik returned to Rio de Janeiro and began to visit the Dom Pedro II Psychiatric Hospital, coordinated by Dr. Nise da Silveira, upon seeing the artworks by schizophrenic patients, who presented an exceptional production. Even without previous art training, Palatnik saw that his own production was impotent in light of the work of those artists who for the most part did not even know the meaning of the word “art.” He therefore gave up his work with brushes and started to engage in a freer relation between form and color.

The first result of his research, his first "Kinechromatic Devices" device, a motorized light sculpture which cast a play of light and shadow into space, was awarded at the 1st São Paulo Bienal of 1951. Since receiving honorable mention from the international jury for the work "Objeto Cinecromático: Azul e Roxo em Primeiro Moviment, 1951" during the 1st São Paulo Bienal of 1951, he has participated of eight editions of the São Paulo Bienal between 1951 and 1963 and the 32nd Venice Biennial in 1964.

In the 1950s, in addition to making kinetic objects, mobiles, and drawings, Palatnik shifted his focus to creating cardboard and wood compositions. Throughout his practice in over sixty years, Palatnik’s work questions time, movement and the relationship of man to nature. His most recent exhibitions include "A Reinvenção da Pintura" in 2015, shown at Museu Iberê Camargo in Porto Alegre, which surveyed 65 years of his prolific career. Previous iterations were shown in Museu Oscar Niemeyer, Curitiba, in 2014, Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo - MAM-SP in 2014; and Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, São Paulo, in 2013.

Achievements

• Abraham Palatnik became famous for organizing the patterns in technology and nature into art, becoming a pioneer of the Op Art movement and the founder of the technological movement in Brazilian art.

Works

More photos

• painting

  • Chess Set

  • Mobilidade IV

  • unknown title

  • Horse

  • Progression 91-A

  • Aparelho Cinecromático

  • Toad

  • Zebra Horse

  • Giraffe

  • Kinechromatic Device S-14

  • Elephant

  • Chick in the Shell of an Egg

  • Horse

  • Cat

  • Objeto Lúdico

  • Comunicação Cinética

  • Rainbow

  • Progression 21-A

  • Peacock

  • Elephant

  • Kinetic object K-06

  • Kinetic Object

  • Relevo em Vacum

  • Snail

  • Kinetic Object

  • Owl

  • Dove

  • Parrot

  • Kinetic Object C-15

  • Owl

  • Tucano

  • Cat

  • Kinetic Object

  • Owl

  • Peacock

Views

For Palatnik, the artist´s role is to discipline the perception of chaos.

References

• Abraham Palatnik
  2004
• Retrospectiva Abraham Palatnik
  1999
• O Lúdico na Obra de Abraham Palatnik
  2013