Waldemar Cordeiro Brazilian, 1925-1973

Overview
Arriving in Brazil in 1946 Cordeiro (b. 1925 Rome, Italy – d. 1973 São Paulo, Brazil) settled in São Paulo in the following year initially working as a journalist, art critic and newspaper caricaturist. In 1949, Cordeiro participated in From Figurativism to Abstractionism, at the newly opened São Paulo Museum of Modern Art where abstraction gained institutional backing. He participated in the first São Paulo International Biennial in 1951 and in various subsequent ones.
 
Cordeiro was Communist, his politics and art theory combined making him a proponent of art as a fundamental element of the social transformation process, firmly believing art should be accessible to all, rejecting the hedonistic idea of ‘art for art’s sake’. He promoted these ideals though public art projects and his landscape design company. As he wrote in the manifest of Grupo Ruptura founded in 1952 with artists such as Luiz Sacilotto and Lothar Charoux “Modern Art is not ignorance. We are against ignorance“. 
 
He followed closely Max Bill’s Concrete Art concepts and studied Visual Gestalt principles. Cordeiro wanted to produce a new Rational art through the use of simple elements; line and colour.
 
From 1965 to 1968 he created work based on the principles of Opera Aperta (Umberto Eco) in the New Tendencies movement. Later, from 1969 to 1973 he introduced Computer Art to Latin America, a movement he called Arteonica which was for him a logical progression of Concrete Art.
Works
  • Waldemar Cordeiro, Gente Grau 0, 1973
    Waldemar Cordeiro
    Gente Grau 0, 1973
    Computer output on paper
    140.5 x 75 cm
    55 1/4 x 29 1/2 inches
  • Waldemar Cordeiro, The Woman is Not B.B. (Brigitte Bardot), 1971
    Waldemar Cordeiro
    The Woman is Not B.B. (Brigitte Bardot), 1971
    Computer output on paper
    61 x 44.5 cm
    24 x 17 1/2 inches
  • Waldemar Cordeiro, Derivatives of an Image: Transformation in Degree 0, 1969
    Waldemar Cordeiro
    Derivatives of an Image: Transformation in Degree 0, 1969
    Offset print
    61 x 44.5 cm
    24 x 17 1/2 inches
  • Waldemar Cordeiro, Derivatives of an Image: Transformation in Degree 1, 1969
    Waldemar Cordeiro
    Derivatives of an Image: Transformation in Degree 1, 1969
    Offset print
    61 x 44.5 cm
    24 x 17 1/2 inches
  • Waldemar Cordeiro, Untitled, 1965
    Waldemar Cordeiro
    Untitled, 1965
    India ink on tracing paper
    32 x 45 cm
    12 5/8 x 17 3/4 inches
  • Waldemar Cordeiro, USCOQ, 1965
    Waldemar Cordeiro
    USCOQ, 1965
    Gouache on tracing paper
    21.5 x 32 cm
    8 1/2 x 12 5/8 inches
  • Waldemar Cordeiro, Untitled, 1963
    Waldemar Cordeiro
    Untitled, 1963
    Oil on canvas
    24.3 x 31.7 cm
    9 5/8 x 12 1/2 inches
  • Waldemar Cordeiro, Untitled, 1963
    Waldemar Cordeiro
    Untitled, 1963
    Oil on canvas
    75 x 74.5 cm
    29 1/2 x 29 3/8 inches
  • Waldemar Cordeiro, Untitled, 1963
    Waldemar Cordeiro
    Untitled, 1963
    Oil on canvas
    18.5 x 27 cm
    7 1/4 x 10 5/8 inches
  • Waldemar Cordeiro, Untitled, 1963
    Waldemar Cordeiro
    Untitled, 1963
    Oil on canvas
    37.5 x 36 cm
    14 3/4 x 14 1/8 inches
  • Waldemar Cordeiro, Untitled, 1961
    Waldemar Cordeiro
    Untitled, 1961
    Oil on canvas
    76.3 x 38 cm
    30 x 15 inches
  • Waldemar Cordeiro, Untitled, 1952
    Waldemar Cordeiro
    Untitled, 1952
    Enamel on plywood
    23.5 x 30.5 cm
    9 1/4 x 12 1/8 inches
  • Waldemar Cordeiro, Untitled, 1952
    Waldemar Cordeiro
    Untitled, 1952
    Tempera on wood panel
    29.5 x 41 cm
    11 5/8 x 16 1/8 inches
  • Waldemar Cordeiro, Untitled, 1951
    Waldemar Cordeiro
    Untitled, 1951
    Tempera on cardboard on wood
    27 x 21 cm
    10 5/8 x 8 1/4 inches
  • Waldemar Cordeiro, Untitled, 1949
    Waldemar Cordeiro
    Untitled, 1949
    China ink on paper
    15.5 x 22.4 cm
    6 1/8 x 8 7/8 inches
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