Lydia Okumura: Situations (Sternberg Press)

For almost 50 years, Brazilian-born New Yorkbased artist Lydia Okumura (b. 1948), like her contemporaries Dorothea Rockburne and Robert Irwin, has explored the realm of geometric abstraction by challenging our perception of space in her sculptures, installations and works on paper. In the 1970s, as a young artist in her native So Paulo, she was introduced to Conceptual art, Minimalism, Land Art and Arte Povera through the Japanese art magazine Bijutsu Techou. These movements, along with Brazilian Concretism and Neoconcretism influenced Okumuras dynamic work in which she uses simple materials such as string, glass and paint to balance line, plane and shadow. The elegant exhibition catalog accompanying the artists first solo exhibition in the United States at the University of Buffalo Art Gallery, is a rich document of her minimal practice and independent vision. Included is an account of the Brazilian avant-garde from 1960 to 1975, an artist interview by curator Rachel Adams, and extensive photo documentation of Okumuras work from 1970 to the present.