Esteban Lisa: The Abstract Cabinet Esteban Lisa

The Abstract Cabinet features paintings of Spanish-Argentinian Esteban Lisa (1895–1983), a pioneer, along with Joaquín Torres García, of Latin American abstraction. Lisa’s paintings reveal the mind of an intellectual artist who wrote prolifically about the dialectical relationship among art, philosophy, and science. Lisa worked in private, seeking to resolve these dialectics through small-scale abstractions, which he never exhibited. The paintings’ reduced size invites an intimate exploration of his work. The title of the exhibition refers to an installation modeled on Soviet artist El Lissitzky’s 1926 Abstrakte Kabinett, where he integrated his abstract art within a small room.