The Eye's Journey: Part One

A collection gathers constellations of meaning. The collector is a reader of times, an explorer that detects and brings together expressions of history and intuitions of what is to come. Indeed, that is why the exercise of collecting often anticipates what will be. A collection is a set of different narratives related by the collector, who discovers intersections that may well have gone unnoticed in their time. The collector’s intention is not only to accumulate, but also to give meaning to the pieces gathered, or even to make the collection available to the interplay of meanings in it that different curators might venture. A collection can be approached in a number of different ways, depending on the vision of the one investigating it.

The vision behind the Nasta Collection has always been broad, marked by a steadfast openness to new elements, whether new passions of artists already in it or new artists not necessarily recognized by art history.

The present, first selection features works by the following artists: Bernardo Krasniansky, Cira Moscarda, Michael Burt, Carlos Colombino, Victor Ocampos, William Riquelme, Enrique Careaga, Laura Márquez, Mamy Toja, Ricardo Yustman, Ignacio Núñez Soler, Ricardo Migliorisi, Jaime Bestard and Hermann Guggiari.

It is important to point out that Moscarda’s studio was, in its day, a focal point of new tendencies, and artists who would later be major points of reference in Paraguayan art — Krasniansky himself, as well as Ricardo Migliorisi and Enrique Careaga— frequented it. The other work by Krasniansky on exhibit, this one from 1969, is a colorful and freely expressive portrait that bears signs of Pop influence as well.

The exhibit presents two works by Carlos Colombino. One is an early tempera that foretells some of the vegetable forms characteristic of his later printing blocks, often presented in rough form as entities in their own right, unbound to their function in relation to the copy.

The artist produced the bulk of his work between 1956 and 1985. He is known for his faces with large, still, timeless, almost hieratic eyes riveted by their own reflection.

A member of Los Novísimos, a group of artists who, in the 1960s, advocated a renewal of local art. He works in both drawing and painting. This recent work— an atypical piece in his oeuvre—addresses a current issue: climate change around the planet. The work combines his interest in bright colors and his passion for pictorial material.

She was an important presence on the cultural scene of the 1960s. While in Buenos Aires, she came into contact with the Di Tella Institute. After her return, she conveyed the experimentation going on there to young artists in Paraguay, among them those in Los Novísimos. This impeccably executed work in acrylic is an abstract composition of geometric figures and planes that evidences her mastery of color.

Bosque en llamas [Forest in Flames], from 1965, is a unique work in his oeuvre. While the artist is mainly known for his fantastic and highly expressive drawings with beings partly mythological and partly human, this one verges on the abstract with playful use of drippings to which the paint itself is central.

Migliorisi is known for playful and, in many cases, biting work. Dreamlike universes are astir in both the paintings and the drawings of his authorship on exhibit.

His work features 'costumbrista' scenes, landscapes, and even expressionist experimentation. The small composition on exhibit appears abstract at first but, upon closer examination, we make out a scene from daily life.