Artists: Yves Tanguy - Wifredo Lam - Alicia Penalba - Agustín Cárdenas

Di Donna Galleries presents Hallowed Ground: Tanguy, Lam, Penalba, Cárdenas, an exhibition premiering at Art Basel Paris from October 18–20 and opening at the gallery’s Madison Avenue location on October 29. This installation unites the works of Yves Tanguy, Wifredo Lam, Alicia Penalba, and Agustín Cárdenas—artists whose journeys from diverse locales converged in the creative capital of Paris. Hallowed Ground: Tanguy, Lam, Penalba, Cárdenas explores how these masters revered and integrated their native environments within the framework of Parisian Modernism, showcasing Tanguy and Lam’s fantastical painted worlds alongside Penalba and Cárdenas’ poignant sculptures. Each of these artists used their shifting environments, as well as their native natural landscapes, as resonant material, emphasizing their respective cultures and individual narratives. Elements found in both Tanguy and Lam’s painted worlds appear to come forth into real space with the sculptures of Penalba and Cárdenas.

Hallowed Ground: Tanguy, Lam, Penalba, Cárdenas celebrates the enduring global legacy of Surrealism, a cornerstone of Di Donna Galleries’ curatorial focus. Since its inception in 2010, the gallery has mounted landmark exhibitions showcasing Surrealism’s diverse spectrum—from explorations of Surrealism in Mexico, the materiality of Surrealist objects and experimental landscapes, to significant surveys dedicated to individual artists such as René Magritte, Man Ray, and Jean (Hans) Arp. Hallowed Ground: Tanguy, Lam, Penalba, Cárdenas will reveal how Tanguy, Lam, Cárdenas, and Penalba synthesized cultural influences, resulting in compositions that embody the often-elusive nature of Surrealism, exploring the uncanny through the lens of place as a vital expression of identity and significance. This exhibition will continue to underscore the lasting influence and relevance of Surrealist art, reaffirming its pivotal role in the contemporary art world, coinciding with the centennial of the Surrealist Manifesto.

The four artists presented in Hallowed Ground: Tanguy, Lam, Penalba, Cárdenas all journeyed to Paris from their homelands in search of furthering their artistic practice. Tanguy had spent his childhood in Brittany, a region steeped in both Celtic and Druidic traditions replete with immense natural, prehistoric beauty. His work, which he produced after moving to Paris in 1922, reflects memories of Brittany’s rocky coasts and neolithic menhirs, which often populate his Surrealist landscapes.

After leaving Cuba in 1923, Lam eventually found himself in Paris, entrenched within the city’s avant-garde circles. His Afro-Cuban and Chinese roots are evident within his paintings, which abound with fantastical figures and mystic symbolism. When Germany invaded France in 1940, Lam and his wife Helena Holzer fled to Marseille alongside André Breton and his wife Jacqueline Lamba. Eventually Lam returned to his native Cuba, which ushered an explosion of creativity, where he merged elements of European Cubism and Surrealism with local Cuban and African subject matter.

Within the sculptural sphere, Argentine artist Penalba’s austere stacks of metallic shards recall her transient childhood spent traveling the Cuyo region, Patagonia, and Chile. In 1949, Penalba worked at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris. She eventually moved to the studio of Ossip Zadkine, who exposed her to the works of Jean (Hans) Arp, Constantin Brâncuși, and Alberto Giacometti—all of whom greatly influenced her practice. Though commonly associated with an abstract practice, her proximity to the Surrealist movement in Paris and the impact it had on her work is subtle but can be observed in the organic dream-like forms she created, which often evoke a sense of the fantastic or otherworldly.

Afro-Cuban sculptor Cárdenas employed diverse material processes to investigate the totemic history of his birthplace. Born in Matanzas, Cuba—a region renowned for its rich fusion of African, Spanish, and Indigenous cultures—Cárdenas' practice was deeply shaped by this diverse cultural heritage. He arrived in Paris in 1955 and was quickly accepted into the Surrealist group led by André Breton. Cárdenas’s sculptural works evoke the natural world and explore themes related to the subconscious and states of transformation.