'Carmen Herrera: Estructuras Monumentales' at the Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, NY, USA

9 May 2024

Running from 25 May to 8 December 2024, 'Carmen Herrera: Estructuras Monumentales' features four large-scale sculptures in red, blue, yellow, and green in the Parrish Art Museum’s South Meadow.

Carmen Herrera is known for her minimalist paintings, prints, and sculptures—often representing geometric shapes with both symmetrical and asymmetrical abstractions. The four works installed in the Meadow, Angulo Azul (2017), Angulo Amarillo (2017), Estructura Verde (1966/2018), and Gemini (Red) (1971/2019) are part of Herrera’s series of Estructuras, which she initially envisioned as sketches and paintings in the 1960s. Herrera used her architectural training to conceive her designs; however, only recently has her vision come to fruition with these monumental sculptures.

Estructuras incorporate a major aspect of Herrera’s life and identity as a Cuban American—the cantilevered sculptures potentially alluding to her inner tension coming to terms with both her native and adopted countries at the time of their creation. Some of these works were conceived in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis when Herrera and her husband, Jesse Lowenthal helped family and friends to escape the conflict. The Estructuras series at the Parrish provides an opportunity to view the acrylic and aluminum works the way Herrera imagined them, with each piece fabricated to her exact color and shape standards.

Find further information via the Parrish Art Museum.