Lúcia Glaz •

Constructive Freedom
Antonio Gonçalves Filho

Even though they’re from another generation, the paintings of Lúcia Glaz (1961) maintains a
proximity with the masters from other schools that preceded her art initiation in the 80’s,
allowing us to mention at least two names that can be identified: the French François
Morellet (1926-2016), whose work in the 50’s, foreshadows the minimalism, and the
Brazilian constructivist Milton Dacosta (1915-1988).

At her first solo exhibition at Paulo Darzé Galeria, Lúcia Glaz pays tribute to Morellet and
Dacosta, presenting a new series of paintings that evoke such the structure of the square
shape, remarkable in the French’s career from 1953 and beyond, along with the
constructions with the referred geometric figure painted by Dacosta in the same period (and
his compositions elaborated between 1957 and 1958 that justify this comparision).

If the first Morellet’s structures with the square (1953) divided the surface of the canvas in
sixteen equal parts, replicating an Mondrian’s typical planning, Milton Dacosta used the
square in a close register to the synthetics construction of Morandi (without Mondrian’s
formal purity. Between both, Lúcia Glaz discovers a solution that doesn’t abandon the
abstract rationalism, but amplifies the vocabulary).

It’s about an investigation that walks towards the way Albers did his research about the color
expansion. An affinity, more than an influence. There’s a graphic project in the paintings of
this exhibition which, even though it’s reverent to the orthogonality, it subverses this order to
state the commitment with the lyrical nature of the square’s figure’s movement, a shape
created by man, of which, by the way, aspires to be perfect.

Painted over the earthy surface on the canvas of Lúcia Glaz, this form, though, resists
Mondrian’s serialist rationalization to suggest a ludic game with the spectator. The geometric
abstraction does not exterminate the poetry of this random data movement that plays with
Morellet’s cinetic adventure without confronting the adhesion to Sobrino and Julio Le Parc
crew, in 1958.

Lúcia Glaz’s forms of expression don’t pass by the adhesion of any movement. Before
integrating to the methods, she prefers to surrender voluntarily to instability suggested by the
physical perception of the square shape as a non-physical entity that fills the space,
something like the squares transformed by the neon lines in Morellet’s paintings.

Subjective decisions are the ones who resist a mechanical execution and reveal the
virtuosity of Lúcia Glaz as a renewer of the constructive language that marked Brazilian art.
She adds Paul Klee’s intimacy in a monochromatic register, sober and next to the concrete
things of the world. A necessary balance in a disordered world.

About Lúcia Glaz

Lúcia Glaz was born in Santos, São Paulo coastline in 1961. A painter since a young age, she took part in many exhibitions. Among them, the collective one “Razão concreta” with painters such as Volpi, Rubem Valentim, Judith Lauand and others, at Berenice Arvani Gallery, São Paulo, in April 2016.

The following year she participated in the SP Arte 2017 and in september of the same year at a individual exhibition at the Berenice Arvani Gallery, curated by Pedro Mastrobuono, “A beleza é metafísica na pintura de Lúcia Glaz”.

She joined Pinta Miami Art Fair in December 2017.

In September 2018 she had another individual exhibition, this time in Rio de Janeiro at Almacén Thebaldi Gallery,” O diálogo da cor”.

She joined PARTE Feira contemporary art fair 2018.

She also participated the collective exhibition “Modernos Eternos” at Mosteiro de São Bento, São Paulo, in August 2019.

In november 2019 she was part of the Projeto Felicidade – Clube Hebraica;

She had an individual exhibition at Pinacoteca Benedicto Calixto, also in november 2019,” A Pintura como processo”;

She joined the online art fair Arte Viewing Room with Berenice Arvani Gallery in August 2020 “A geometria como forma de expressão “; She was part of ExpoSevivon Beit-Chabat in December 2020.