Education
Luis Felipe Noé studied painting with Horacio Butler from 1950 to 1952 but is “essentially considered self-taught.”Ramirez, Mari Carmen. ''Re-Aligning Vision: Alternative Currents in South American Drawing''. Austin: Archer M. Huntington Art Gallery, The University of Texas at Austin, 1997. He also studied law at the Universidad de Buenos Aires and wrote art reviews for various newspapers prior to his first exhibit in 1959 at the Galeria Witcomb.Career
Otra Figuración (1960−1965)
Painting
In 1960 the artists of Otra Figuración began to live and work together in an apartment building that doubled as a studio in Carlos Pellegrini Street in Buenos Aires.Grieder, Terence. ''Argentina’s New Figurative Art''. Art Journal Vol. 24, No. 1 (Autumn 1964) pp. 2-6 The collective included Rómulo Macció,Drawing
An exhibition composed exclusively of drawings by the group in 1962, titled ''Esto'' at Galeria Lirolay in Buenos Aires had a significant impact on autonomous, experimental drawing inNew York (1965−1966)
Following Otra Figuración disbanding in 1965, that same year Noé received a Guggenheim fellowship that allowed him to relocate to New York City. He pushed his ideas regarding chaos even further at this time, creating huge, unsaleable and difficult-to-store assemblages—even throwing his work into the Hudson River. He also published ''Antiestética'' in 1965, a text explicating his theories on chaos, “the purpose of anti-aesthetics today is to split the concept of unity.” In the introduction to the 1966 exhibition brochure at Bonino Gallery in New York City, Noé revised an earlier opinion on the fusion of figures, reflecting the contradictions in both Argentina and Latin America, writing that “the essential element of contemporary society is the tension and opposition among diverging cosmovisions, the fraternizations of opposing atmospheres.” The paintings in the show were prefigured by his 1962 work, ''Mambo'', a deconstructed painting that featured the front and back of the work, an “inverted painting...hinting at another side of painting...abandoning neo-figurative painting.” The 1966 Bonino Gallery exhibition included ''Three doors'': distorted, haunted faces painted as isolated fragments on old, hinged-together panel doors—some with missing or broken panels, and also the huge, ironically titled ''Balance''. This assemblage consisted of several large canvases, some lying on the floor, others propped precariously against each other or along walls, some with sections popped out and up from the canvas, displayed like fragile paper dolls on a stand. His attempt to order chaos had led to “pictures of broken vision.” After this exhibition, Noé returned to Buenos Aires and stopped painting entirely for almost ten years. The sabbatical is attributed to a combination of existential crisis and commercial failure.Buenos Aires (1967−1976)
Upon return to Buenos Aires, Noé opened a bar (Barbaro) that was frequented by the literati. Even though he'd temporarily abandoned painting, his creative impulse never abated. Noé taught during these years and continued to innovate spatially, using distortion mirrors to arrange installations which he exhibited at the Museo de Bellas Artes de Caracas in 1968. The mirrors helped him to visualize the characters in his 1974 experimental novel ''Recontrapoder'', a philosophical exploration of fragmentation, absurdity, power and aesthetics. For Noé, life in Buenos Aires was absurd. Restoration of order meant empowering a repressive government, while protest resulted in riots and endless social upheaval. Ironically, one of the worst political crises in Argentina's history coincided with his return to painting. He said during the 1975 exhibition, "I feel...like a mirror facing both the ghost of a dead person and the future latency of an unborn." Strife had escalated since the late 1960s, adding to Buenos Aires’ usual instability. Radicals, ex-Peronists, writers and intellectuals joined urban guerillas, creating even further havoc.Wilson, Jason. ''Buenos Aires: A Cultural History''. Northampton: Interlink Books, 2007. Strikes, riots and economic collapse followed. The chaotic situation turned dire in 1974 whenParis (1976−1987)
Noé's art continued to evolve in Paris. Once again, he altered the frame of reference by re-texturizing huge pieces of canvas before painting, “crumpling and gathering, then stapling to the stretcher...creating a tortured surface for paint..”Buccellato, Laura and Costa, Eduardo. ''Luis F. Noé at Centro Cultural Borges and Galeria Rubbers''. Art in America v87n3 (Mar 1999) pp. 126-127. He also began painting expressive landscapes that reflected both internal and external turbulence, such as ''The Storm'' in 1982. He experimented further with drawing technique in Paris, creating a “progressive, narrative transformation of the original image” by using a Xerox to copy multiple redrawn versions of an original. Works such as ''One Passion and Four Transformations'' were considered a return to Otra Figuración's platform, “drawing as process rather than mimesis and formal idealization.”Later work (1987−1997)
Noé returned, as always, to Buenos Aires in 1987 and continued to work with oversized canvases and landscape elements. His 1997 exhibition at Centro Cultural Borges and Galeria Rubbers in Buenos Aires consisted of a total of 60 canvases, all painted in 1997. Noé introduced a new visual element in this show, "violently colored stripes...to energize his landscapes." He also repeated the crumpled canvas technique developed in the 1980s to great effect in the painting ''Ominoso,'' a field of blue sporting streamers of crushed and painted canvas.Artistry
Stylistic hallmarks of Otra Figuración's version of Neofiguration are strong, vivid colors and spontaneous, slashing brushwork; fusion of fragmented and distorted figures with each other and animals; political content; extreme sense of kinesis and the appearance of anarchy on canvas. Structurally, the group made use of collage, mixed media, oversized canvases, and assemblages that gave many of the works a sculptural quality. Overall, the artwork managed to merge form, content, process and philosophy. The philosophical platform of the group and its art are best expressed by Noé, “I believe in chaos as a value.”Ramirez, Mari Carmen and Olea, Hector. ''Inverted Utopias: Avant-Garde Art in Latin America''. New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2004. He doesn't demonize chaos but acknowledges and accepts the reality of its inescapable existence. The group's art reflects the political instability and uncertainty of life in Buenos Aires and also, in a larger sense, an awareness of the precarious situation of all human beings living in the incoherent modern world. Noé proposed that in such a world, chaos itself must become an organizing principle.Frank, Patrick. ''Readings in Latin American Modern Art''. “Chaos as a Structure, from Antiestética, 1965.” Noe, Luis Felipe. New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2004. Noé embraces both political and human chaos in his work, fearlessly entering the eye of the storm.Influences
Informalism was the predominant movement in Argentina at the time, and Noé's influences were the painters Sarah Grilo and José Antonio Fernández-Muro.Barnitz, Jacqueline. ''Twentieth-Century Art of Latin America''. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001 Other acknowledged Argentine influences on both Noé and his fellow-artists who later comprised Otra Figuración, were the politically oriented neo-figuristAwards and honours
Noé was honored with a retrospective in 1995/1996 at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires and the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. In 2002Selected artworks
* ''Convocatoria a la barbarie (Summoning to a Barbarism'') From the Federal series, 1961Significant exhibitions
Noé had more than 40 one-man exhibitions by the mid-1980s and also participated in numerous group shows. A few of the most notable are listed below.One-man exhibitions
*1959 Galeria Witcomb, Buenos Aires (his debut) *1965 Museo de Arte Moderno, Buenos Aires *1966 Galeria Bonino, New York *1987 Retrospective at the Museo de Artes Plasticas Eduardo Sivori, Buenos Aires *1995 Retrospective at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires *1996 Retrospective at the Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City *1997 Centro Cultural Borges, Buenos AiresGroup exhibitions: Deira, Macció, de la Vega, Noé
*1961 ''Otra Figuración'', Galeria Peuser, Buenos Aires (Otra Figuración debut) *1962 ''Esto'' (drawings), Galeria Lirolay & Galeria Bonino, Buenos Aires *1963 Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires *1965 Galeria Bonino, Buenos AiresInternational group exhibitions
*1964 ''Guggenheim International Award'', Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NYC *1964 ''New Art of Argentina'', Walker Art Center, Minneapolis *1965 ''The Emergent Decade: Latin American Painters and Paintings in the 1960s'', The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NYCCompetition exhibition in Argentina
*1963 ''Premio Nacional'', Instituto Torcuato Di Tella, Buenos Aires (awarded the ''Premio Palanza'')Writings
*Noé, Luis Felipe. ''Antiestética''. Buenos Aires: Van Riel, 165 and De la Flor, 1988. *Noé, Luis Felipe. ''Una Sociedad Colonial Avanzada''. Buenos Aires: De la Flor, 1971 *Noé, Luis Felipe. ''Recontrapoder''. Buenos Aires: De la Flor, 1974. *Noé, Luis Felipe. ''A Oriente por Occidente''. Bogota: Dos Graficos, 1992. *Noé, Luis Felipe. ''El Otro, la Otra y la Otredad''. Buenos Aires: IMPSAT, 1994 *Noé, Luis Felipe and Rando, Nahuel. ''Las aventuras de Recontrapoder''. Buenos Aires: De la Flor, 2003. (Graphic novel)Notes
* Ades, Dawn. ''Art in Latin American: The Modern Era, 1820-1980''. New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1993. * Glusberg, Jorge. ''Del Pop-art a la nueva imagen''. Buenos Aires: Ediciones de Arte Gaglianone, 1985. * Lewis, Colin M. ''A Short History of Argentina''. Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2002. * Lucie-Smith, Edward. ''Latin American Art of the 20th Century''. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd., 1993 and 2004.References
External links