'Penumbra': International exhibition opens at Proa exploring light, space and perception

There is a time, between full light and total darkness, in which perception becomes uncertain. That middle ground – unstable, subtle, almost imperceptible – is the starting point of Penumbra: Dia Art Foundation, a new exhibition at the Fundación Proa in Buenos Aires

The exhibition, which opened this week and runs until August 2, marks a new chapter in the history of the La Boca-based institution – it is also an exceptional event for the Argentine art world. For the first time, a set of essential artists representing contemporary art are appearing in the same exhibition – influential works from Agnes Martin, Andy Warhol, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, James Turrell and Richard Serra will be on display.

Yet Penumbra is not just a gathering of acclaimed names. Curated by Humberto Moro and Ella den Elzen, the show offers an experience: a tour where works are no longer objects, but become situations, which happen in relation with those observing them.

Upon entering, the visitor does not find certainties, but variations. Warhol’s monumental ‘Shadows’ painting seems to expand until it borders on abstraction. Thanks to Serra’s steel structures, weight and balance are perceived almost physically. With Turrell’s works, light no longer lights but becomes matter: it stops revealing, but rather envelops.

During that transit, time also plays a role. The works of Robert Irwin and Gonzalez-Torres change depending on the route one takes, the time one spends looking at them or whether its dusk or daylight. In particular, the latter’s curtains – pierced by natural light – transform the space constantly: what people see is never exactly the same. The work, rather than imposing itself, just happens.

Conversely, Martin’s delicate surfaces invite people to stop and ponder. There, repetition and subtlety generate an introspective experience, one close to meditation, in which looking becomes a sustained act.

This exhibition also resumes a historic link. In 1998, Fundación Proa and the Dia Art Foundation worked together to bring works by Dan Flavin and Sol LeWitt to Buenos Aires at a key time in Proa’s process of institutional consolidation. Nearly three decades later, in the run-up to its 30th anniversary, the dialogue is reactivated with an offer that expands horizons.

Penumbra ultimately poses a question: how we see and how we inhabit space. In that quest, the penumbra is no longer a condition of light to become a field of experience, where the visible and the occult become tense and where every visitor, with their presence, completes the work.

The exhibit is sponsored by Tenaris and Ternium, and is supported by American Friends of Fundación Proa, thus reaffirming the value of the collaboration to make one of the most ambitious projects in the cultural year possible.