Beto De Volder Argentine, b. 1962
Beto De Volder's (b. 1962, Buenos Aires) practice took shape in the 1990s, during a time when young artists were rediscovering Latin America's pioneering place in the history of mid-Century geometric abstraction. He has centered his work on the exploration of circles, curves, and geometric structures through drawing, built from repetition and variation. Since relocating to New York in 2018, the work has expanded into new materials—pencil on clayboard, painting on canvas—and new scales and formats. It holds two references in tension: the entanglements of weaving and basketry, and the visual language of circuits and machines—the ancestral and the techno-optimist—settling in the space between them. From a distance the works read as structured and systematic; up close they reveal irregularity, error, improvisation, and play. This dichotomy between control and freedom defines the practice.
His work has been shown at the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA) and the Blanton Museum of Art, and is held in the collections of MALBA and the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros.
