The Suspended Art of Salvador Presta

The important retrospective exhibition of Italian artist Salvador Presta will open at the Museum of Geometric and MADI Art on July 20. The exhibition will show the complex personality of the artist and his works as well as an overview of the different steps of his artistic activity. The show runs through October 14. Collector Gianfranco Bonomi will make a personal appearance at the opening and will lecture on the artist and his development in the world of geometric art on Sunday July 22 at 3:00 p.m.

Salvador Presta studied art and began his career in Buenos Aires. His first abstract work was very close to traditional European constructivism as defined by the Dutch De Stijl movement, Soviet realism and the works of Antoine Pevsner and Naum Gabo. He became intrigued with the MADI movement established by Carmelo Arden-Quin which broke with the traditional geometric regularity and symmetric balance. He processed several creative stages turning to a spatial, chromatic and atmospherical search, becoming more pure MADI along the way. He evolved to kinetic artwork or mobiles which "vibrate spaces" through the use of vividly colored or transparent spheres and cubes hanging by almost invisible nylon threads or pierced by an iron bar. These move on an irregular basis in a backdrop of light. Presta is a painter, sculptor, poet and first brought the MADI Movement to Italy.

Salvador Presta is represented in museums throughout the world including the Museum of Modern Art, National Museum of de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires, Museum of Modern Art in Busto Arsizio, Italy, Mondriaanhuis Museum in Amersfoort, Holland and Museum Madi in Budapest, Hungry. A large exhibit of his mobiles was a part of the MADI exhibition at Madrid's Reina Sophia in 1997.

The Museum of Geometric and MADI Art is free and open to the public Tuesdays through Sundays. Educational programming is financially supported by the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs.