Eugenio Espinoza Venezuela, b. 1950

Eugenio Espinoza (b. 1950, San Juan de los Morros, Venezuela) is known for challenging and subverting the traditions of geometric abstraction and kinetic art. Trained under Gego in Caracas and later in New York at Pratt Institute, NYU, and the School of Visual Arts, Espinoza emerged in the late 1960s with a conceptual approach he called “tropicalizing the grid.”

His most iconic works, the Impenetrables, consist of black gridded canvases altered, folded, or stretched across spaces, transforming formalist structures into political and social metaphors. Throughout his career, he has expanded into photography, installations, and collage, maintaining a focus on space, perception, and abstraction.

A landmark retrospective, Unruly Supports, at Pérez Art Museum Miami in 2015 traced the evolution of his practice from the 1970s onwards. Today, his work is held in major museum collections around the world, cementing his influence within the history of Latin American and global contemporary art.

Selected Exhibitions

2024 – Lucidus Disorder, Baró Galeria, Palma de Mallorca, Spain

2024 – La razón del coco, Baró Galeria, Palma de Mallorca, Spain

2023 – Tropical, Stories from Southeast Asia and Latin America, National Gallery Singapore 

2019 – Sur Moderno: Journeys of Abstraction, MoMA, New York 

2019 – Room for Failure, Piero Atchugarry Gallery, Miami

2018 – Human Applause, Bortolami, New York

2017 – Raising the Curtain, Galeria Moises Perez de Albeniz, Madrid

2016 – Retro/Retrospectiva 2016–1972, Tenerife Espacio de las Artes, Spain (retrospective)

2015 – Unruly Supports (1970–1980), Pérez Art Museum Miami (solo exhibition)

2013 – Out of Focus, Prosjektrom Normanns, Stavanger, Norway

2012 – Good Blue Day, Piero Atchugarry Gallery, Miami

2011 – Unlocking Something, Galleria Umberto Di Marino, Naples

Collections

– Tate Modern, London

– The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York

– Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

– Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

– Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas

– Pérez Art Museum Miami

– Museu de Arte Contemporânea, São Paulo

– Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro

– Cisneros-Fontanals Art Foundation, Miami

– Fundación Gego, Caracas

– Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Bogotá