FEDERICO BROOK: BETWEEN ROME AND LATIN AMERICA AT MUSEO NACIONAL DE BELLAS ARTES

Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes presents the exhibition Federico Brook: Between Rome and Latin America, a selection of sculptures, drawings, collages, graphic works, and jewelry by the Argentine artist, curated by María Cristina Rossi. Sponsored by the Embassy of Italy in Argentina, the exhibition explores and connects much of Brook’s creative universe, developed in the passage between Latin America and Rome.

Andrés Duprat, director of the museum, explains: “Throughout his career, Brook experimented with a wide repertoire of languages and materials: works of informalist inspiration, geometric sculptures and mobiles, and a series of objects he called ‘clouds,’ which represent one of the most significant and constant typologies of his production.”

Rossi adds: “From his youth, Brook built bridges between the American and European continents. After studying in Buenos Aires and Rome, he developed an informalist sensibility with which he interpreted the symbolic universe of the space age.” The exhibition brings together nearly fifty works related to Brook’s “clouds,” which the artist addressed in different formats, ranging from jewelry to monumental works in public spaces. “Ethereal and elusive, the clouds synthesized his technical and sensitive maturity. They were the material and symbolic forms that gave flight to imagination and fantasy, to challenges and to the ideals of this artist of his time,” Rossi explains.

The exhibition also includes a 2025 video directed by Italian filmmaker Paola Sangiovanni, highlighting one of the central aspects of Brook’s thinking: his interest in integrating sculpture into architecture and public space.

Born in Buenos Aires in 1933, Federico Brook began studying Architecture before completing his training at the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes of the Universidad Nacional de La Plata. In 1956, he moved to Italy, where he studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome with Alessandro Monteleone and Pericle Fazzini, earning a Master’s degree in Sculpture. Brook also had a distinguished career in cultural management: he was curator of the Argentine Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (1964, 1968, and 1970) and held positions at the Casa Argentina in Rome and the Istituto Italo-Latinoamericano, promoting projects in music, literature, film, and visual arts. He currently represents Italy as a corresponding academic at the Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes in Argentina and lives and works in Rome.

Federico Brook: Between Rome and Latin America will be on view until October 12, 2025, in the second-floor galleries of the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Av. del Libertador 1473, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

*Cover image: Federico Brook. "White Cloud on Black Background with Rain" (Nuvola bianca su sfondo nero con pioggia), 2000. Stained glass on acrylic base, 34 x 12 x 7 cm. Artist’s collection.