Waldemar Cordeiro. Constellations

The ZKM exhibition »Constellations. From Concrete Art to Computer Art« will be the first German retrospective of Brazilian artist, theorist and designer Waldemar Cordeiro (1925–73). As an influential pioneer of concrete art, Cordeiro played a pivotal role in the history of Brazilian art during the 20th century. His work covers a broad range from abstract and geometrical art to social criticism and computer-generated art.

The exhibition at the ZKM presents Waldemar Cordeiro’s oeuvre following four major phases: The first phase, the »Concretismo« [concrete art] of the late 1940s and 1950s, is characterized by precise lines and abstract arrangements of colored shapes. With »Geometria intuitiva« [intuitive Geometry], Cordeiro turned away from the search for rational form and began incorporating organic shapes, bright tropical colors and randomness as well as increasingly turning to the public. »Popcreto« – a blend of pop art and concrete art – was against the backdrop of Brazil’s 1964 military coup Cordeiro’s reaction to the new realism movement in art. »Arteônica,« a term coined by Cordeiro, refers to the fourth phase, combining »arte« [art] and »electrônica« [electronics] in the late 1960s and early 1970s. 

As one of the first artists in South America, Waldemar Cordeiro began exploring the nascent computer technology in the 1960s and engaged in close correspondence with computer art pioneers and theorists. From 1968 onwards, Cordeiro and physicist Giorgio Moscati (*1934) jointly produced what are considered to be the first computer-generated artworks of Latin America. By participating in various international exhibitions such as »Tendencies 4. Computers and Visual Research« (1969) in Zagreb (Croatia, formerly Yugoslavia) and organizing his own exhibitions titled »Computer Plotter Art« (1970) and »Arteônica« (1971) in São Paulo, Cordeiro played a crucial role in the spread of Computer Art, which he considered a logical evolution of concrete art. This makes Cordeiro one of the few artists in the world who embodied the commonly emphasized connection between concrete art and digital art in their own lifetime.

The exhibition at the ZKM is based on the 2024 retrospective »Waldemar Cordeiro. A Singular Constellation« presented at The Mayor Gallery in London. In Karlsruhe, the exhibition will be augmented with photographs, letters and print material from the collection and archives of the ZKM which document Cordeiro’s connections to the international Computer Art movement.