The Brooklyn Rail

At Galerie Lelong we see paintings begun after Elda Cerrato (b. 1930, d. 2023) returned to Argentina in 1964 from Venezuela. While there, she had studied George Ivanovich Gurdjieff’s (b. 1866, d. 1949) “Fourth Way” esoteric teachings.  

Mineralización y Revitalización de Una a Otra Dimensión (Serie Entes Extraños. Epopeya del Ser Beta) (1968) is one example of her painterly projections of invisible energetic, cosmological, and spiritual forces. Her life and work moved between two poles: the political and the other-dimensional quest for higher states of consciousness. In Geohistoriografía: La dominación (Serie Geo-historiografía) (1975) and Pasa lo mismo en el movimiento que en el mapa? (1976), Latin American countries are placed within the outlines of the US map. With our current Yankee invasion of Venezuela, and Trump’s Rough Riders about to retake Cuba’s San Juan Hill, her works are both timely and prophetic. Also, we are currently seeing a renewed interest in the teachings of Gurdjieff through the writings of P. D. Ouspensky (b. 1878, d. 1947) and others mapping paths to higher states of consciousness; quantum energies are certainly a field of interest today. Sadly, these journeys of the soul have been excluded from the discourse in institutions centered around art and politics. Because her works bridge the worlds of science, politics, and spirituality, they feel both contemporary and part of the zeitgeist.

In Gurdjieff’s system, where humans are referred to as “three-brained beings,” “Beta Beings” refer roughly to a state in which beta brainwave frequencies are related to higher consciousness. Beta waves have long been associated with greater cognition. The artist’s Gurdjieff studies and several extraterrestrial sightings around 1964 led to her most memorable “cosmovision” works. Seeing her paintings, I could not help thinking of the spiritual branch of Russian cosmism where science, esoteric ideas about cosmic energies, self-transformation, and space exploration came together. Nikolai Fyodorov (b. 1829, d. 1903), Cosmism’s founder, would have loved her work!

“Serie Entes Extraños. Epopeya del Ser Beta” (1960) takes the viewer into Cerrato’s unique territory. She does not fit neatly into categories of Latin American Surrealism despite her ties to the Caracas avant-garde collective El Techo de la Ballena [The Roof of the Whale], which practiced a politicized strand of Surrealism, although their influence is felt in her later political works. Cerrato practiced Surrealist automatism, which lifted her use of biological forms beyond the literal examples she encountered in her university studies in biochemistry. To lump her paintings under the heading of biomorphic abstraction misses the point. For this reviewer, the works in her “Beta Beings” series are her masterpieces.

In Mineralización y Revitalización de Una a Otra Dimensión (Serie Entes Extraños. Epopeya del Ser Beta) (1968), a white ovoid-form takes on a cosmogonic role. It feels like a diagram of the birth of a new cosmic universe. The diagram on the left side of the black background resembles a cranium and a lightbulb absorbing cosmic rays. The masterpiece of the exhibition is a two-sided work standing in the middle of the floor, Redundancia en las experiencias relativas al Okidanokh. Faz 1. Acumulación energética presente. Faz 2. Acumulación energética ausente. (Serie Producción de energía. Redundancia en las experiencias relativas al Okidanokh) (1967). The dark ovoid on one side and the light ovoid on the reverse side act as a kind of yin yang, a cosmic dualism. This is the work that transports the viewer into the higher dimensions Gurdjieff prophesized!

This Elda Cerrato exhibition acts like a period survey, and some of her most important works can be seen here. Lelong has provided a vitrine of documentation, and a monitor showing her collaborative film Algunos segmentos (1970) made with her composer-partner Luis Zubillaga and Grupo de Improvisación de La Plata musicians. Seeing the film, it is hard not to think she would have fitted nicely into the group of experimental filmmakers around Harry E. Smith (b. 1923, d. 1991), and Jordan Belson (b. 1926, d. 2011).

Cerrato navigated fascism at many points in her life, firstly with her family fleeing her birthplace Asti, Italy, in 1937; during the 1966 military coup in Argentina, Cerrato and her family moved back to Buenos Aires; finally, during the 1976 military junta, Cerrato and her family returned to Caracas. Her later works mirror the political struggle and are less idealistic as the “Beta Beings” crash like Icarus down to harsh realities of earth. More emblematic images of workers, agriculture, and industry appear, with some tenderly rendered from photographs. In Repertorio de sueños III (Serie de la realidad: Sueños) (1975), we see four squares: one shows images of corn representing agriculture, another heavy industry, another architecture in the form of high rises, and lastly, a family. The four squares are placed on a globe with a sky-and-ocean surround. While the viewer is moved by the delicacy of the rendering, the intense color palette places the works more in this world than in the land of dreams. El sueño de la casita propia IV (1976) through the use of a pointillist rendering and abstract mapping more successfully combines the worlds of the cosmic and the political. The indigenous family tenderly rendered in the circle is haunting. This is a political work seen through the eyes of a woman and a mother; here, the political feels personal.

This exhibition is to be highly recommended, especially for artists wondering how to navigate the politics and chaos of our current world. It requires a two-pronged approach: a political commentary based on lived experience, and a spiritual practice to transform the inner life. Life is not lived on one dimension. Elda Cerrato is an example of how an artist can navigate both worlds which may seem separate but are interconnected.