Curator Talks and Tours: Gyula Kosice’s “Intergalactic”

For the opening of Gyula Kosice: Intergalactic, join exhibition co-curators María Amalia García and Mari Carmen Ramírez for a tour and intimate conversation.

One hundred years after his birth, Gyula Kosice: Intergalactic celebrates the career of the Argentine artist Gyula Kosice (b. 1924, Košice, Czechoslovakia; d. 2016, Buenos Aires, Argentina), an experimental artist, sculptor, poet, and theorist. Co-founder of Arturo (1944) and Madí (1946), two constructive art groups centered in the Río de la Plata region between Uruguay and Argentina, he was also a prominent figure in the international avant-garde after 1945. His practice introduced original artistic ideas, such as interactive sculptures, which questioned the relationship between the art object and the spectator and experimented with a wide range of materials, many of which had never been used in art.

Like Julio Le Parc and Carlos Cruz-Diez, he incorporated light and motion yet, was one of the first to incorporate water in his works. Intergalactic focuses on his experimental production, in which motion was a constant and essential feature. It includes works that he created between 1950 and 1980, such as acrylic sculptures, kinetic reliefs, and drops of water, most of which incorporated lights and were activated by aerators and motors.

The exhibition features Gyula Kosice’s most ambitious work, The Hydrospatial City (1946–2004), an experiential installation comprised of architectural prototypes that speculate on the possibility of human settlement beyond Earth brought on by socioeconomic inequality, environmental degradation, and astronomical population growth. As an alternative, he proposed a city of semi-open, modular habitats suspended 5000 feet above the ground and powered by oxygen and hydrogen harnessed from water vapor in the clouds.

Free with museum admission. Admission is $18 for adults and free for members.