Juanito and Ramona Exhibition
Lure of high society, working-class
struggle and radical artistic innovation
are major themes of the latest exhibition
at Phoenix Art Museum.
Antonio Berni: Juanito and Ramona at Phoenix Art Museum features over one hundred objects by innovative artist Antonio Berni (1905-1981). The included works span a variety of media including paintings, assemblages, sculptures, works on paper, sketchbooks, and printing plates.
Berni is little known in the United States, but widely recognized throughout Latin America as one of the most important artists of the 20th century. He used a wide array of bright colors and materials in his works to shed light on the realities of the Argentinean working class and their struggles to overcome economic challenges during the 1960s and '70s. A collaboration between the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and Malba – Fundación Costantini in Buenos Aires, Antonio Berni: Juanito and Ramona, sponsored by the Diane and Bruce Halle Foundation, is the first Berni exhibition organized by a U.S. museum in nearly 50 years and the first to focus on this iconic series.
Berni rose to prominence early in his career as a leading painter and promoter of “New Realism” in Latin America. In the mid-1950s, motivated by the social distress and poverty he witnessed among his country’s rapid industrialization and parallel socio-political upheavals, he abandoned painting for a more visceral artistic medium: assemblage.
Juanito ciruja [Juanito the Scavenger], 1978
Oil, bonded fabrics, tin cans, papier mâché, burlap, canvas shoes, rubber, plastic, metals, wire, cord, nails, and staples on wood
63 x 41 5/16 inches (160 x 105 cm)
Private Collection, Buenos Aires
José Antonio Berni-Sucesión Lily Berni
In 1958, Berni began a series of works that chronicled his country's story through the tales of two fictional characters: Juanito Laguna and Ramona Montiel. Juanito was a young boy who left his home in the countryside to seek work in Buenos Aires and ended up living in poverty in the villas miserias (misery towns or shantytowns) on the city’s outskirts. Ramona, on the other hand, was a young working-class woman who was lured into a life of high-society prostitution by the promise of expensive gifts and luxurious decadence.
Over the latter part of the 20th century, Berni’s invented characters became so well known that they attained cult status in Argentina as popular legends and folk heroes.
Antonio Berni: Juanito and Ramona
Phoenix Art Museum
Through Sept. 21, 2014
Le colonel, ami de Ramona o El coronel golpista, no. 2 El coronel golpista no. 3
[The Colonel, Ramona’s friend or The Coup Leader No. 2] dd ddddddddd d[The Coup Leader No. 3]
1964 Undated
Oil, wood, paper, egg carton, cardboard, metal, Oil, cardboard, plastic, and metals including bottle cap, tap shoe tips;
string on polywood gilded escutcheons, glue, and staples on plywood
18 ¾ x 14 ½ inches (47.7 x 36.8 cm) 20 ¾ x 17 ¼ inches (52.7 x 43.8 cm)
Private Collection, Belgium Private Collection, Belgium
José Antonio Berni-Sucesión Lily Berni José Antonio Berni-Sucesión Lily Berni
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La sordidez, de la serie Los monstruos cósmicos [Sordidness, from the series Cosmic Monsters], 1964
Polymateric construction composed of wood, metals including steel, iron, and aluminum bottle caps; cardboard, plastic, roots, nails, and enamel
With platform: 50 3/4 x 47 1/4 x 157 1/2 inches (129 x 120 x 400 cm)
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Museum purchase funded by the Caroline Wiess Law Foundation
José Antonio Berni
Las vacaciones de Juanito, [Juanito’s Vacation],1972
Acrylic and metals including car door and aluminum pan; rubber, wood, and fabrics including caps, jersey, and handkerchiefs;
broom straw, paper, jute, nails, and staples on wood
80 13/16 x 117 1/2 in. (205.3 x 298.5 cm)
Private Collection, Madrid
José Antonio Berni
Ramona en la calle [Ramona in the Street] Sin título (Ramona levantando pesas)
[Untitled (Ramona Lifting Weights)]
1964, copy signed 1966 1963
Xylo-collage-relief Xylo-collage
Block: 31 x 22 1/4 in. (78.7 x 56.5 cm); Block: 25 1/8 x 15 1/8 in. (63.8 x 38.4 cm);
Sheet: 34 3/4 x 25 1/4 in. (888.3 x 64.1 cm) Sheet: 20 x 19 5/8 in. (50.8 x 49.8 cm)
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Museum purchase funded by Alfredo and Celina Hellmund Brener Museum purchase funded by Tom Roupe and Scott Gieselman
José Antonio Berni in honor of Peter R. Coneway at “One Great Night in November, 2001”
José Antonio Berni
