'With this gesture, Paternosto reaffirms the meaning of the illustrated work; in a sense, he stops painting.'the Argentinian critic Ricardo Martin-Crosa
Read MoreCésar Paternosto obtained his law degree in 1958 and attended fine arts courses at the National University of La Plata until 1961. Paternosto's work is the sum of various influences: the Bauhaus, Malevich, Mondrian but also South American culture, especially textile art and its geometric patterns. He is a great connoisseur of pre-Columbian art and his work has led him to publish his research.
Paternosto made his name in the 1960s with his works where the face was left white and the edges of the canvas were painted. With this act, he moved the subject of his paintings to the edges and called into question the conventions of perspective and flatness of painting. He encourages the viewer to look at the work from the side and not from the front, as he would do with a three-dimensional work such as a sculpture. This is what Paternosto calls 'oblique vision'.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Paternosto travelled through Argentina, Bolivia and Peru in search of the monuments and artefacts of pre-Columbian civilisations. He wanted to study the shapes and colours used in these productions. He followed the example of Joaquín Torres García, who, in the 1930s, began advocating the mixing of European and Amerindian geometric forms.
Paternosto's paintings can be found in various prestigious collections, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid, the Kunstmuseum in Bern, Switzerland, and the Städtisches Museum Abteiberg in Mönchengladbach, Germany.
César Paternosto has been exhibiting at the denise rené gallery since 1973.
Text courtesy galerie denise rené.
