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Artworks

ELSA GRAMCKO, El castillo de Elsinor (Elsinore’s Castle), 1963
ELSA GRAMCKO, El castillo de Elsinor (Elsinore’s Castle), 1963
ELSA GRAMCKO, El castillo de Elsinor (Elsinore’s Castle), 1963
ELSA GRAMCKO, El castillo de Elsinor (Elsinore’s Castle), 1963
ELSA GRAMCKO, El castillo de Elsinor (Elsinore’s Castle), 1963
ELSA GRAMCKO, El castillo de Elsinor (Elsinore’s Castle), 1963

El castillo de Elsinor (Elsinore’s Castle), 1963

Car battery cells and mixed media on Masonite
24 3/8 x 25 5/8 in.
61.9 x 65.1 cm

Further images

  • (View a larger image of thumbnail 1 ) ELSA GRAMCKO, El castillo de Elsinor (Elsinore’s Castle), 1963
  • (View a larger image of thumbnail 2 ) ELSA GRAMCKO, El castillo de Elsinor (Elsinore’s Castle), 1963
  • (View a larger image of thumbnail 3 ) ELSA GRAMCKO, El castillo de Elsinor (Elsinore’s Castle), 1963
  • (View a larger image of thumbnail 4 ) ELSA GRAMCKO, El castillo de Elsinor (Elsinore’s Castle), 1963
  • (View a larger image of thumbnail 5 ) ELSA GRAMCKO, El castillo de Elsinor (Elsinore’s Castle), 1963
  • (View a larger image of thumbnail 6 ) ELSA GRAMCKO, El castillo de Elsinor (Elsinore’s Castle), 1963
With these works, which refer to architectural elements (doors, windows, dwelling spaces), Gramcko began to provide narrative and poetic titles to her paintings based on their specific subjects as well...
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With these works, which refer to architectural elements (doors, windows, dwelling spaces), Gramcko began to provide narrative and poetic titles to her paintings based on their specific subjects as well as in references to Western literature such as Hamlet’s castle. The use of the peeled grid structure of the car battery box provides a compositional principle that brings a tactile quality to the work as well as an integrated structure to the traditional constructive grid used in geometric painting. Gramcko left traditional pictorial media to embrace discarded industrial objects. The grid becomes an essential part of an order in ruins, rather than a rational element.

"Elsinor’s Castle" (1963), considered one of Gramcko’s masterpieces and the largest work in the series, is an outstanding assemblage on Masonite, structured through the gridlike compartments of car batteries. The work belonged to Gramcko. And was included in the traveling group show 22 artistas Latinoamericanos as well as the Salón Oficial Annual de Arte Venezolano. Critic Marta Traba pointed out the outstanding, close, private, and secret world created in these works by Gramcko.
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Exhibitions

Elsa Gramcko: The Invisible Plot of Things. Sicardi | Ayres | Bacino. Houston, TX, May 13 to July 2, 2022.
Contesting Modernity.
Informalism in Venezuela 1955 -1975. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX, October 28, 2018 to January 21, 2019.
Elsa Gramcko, Una aquimista de nuestro tiempo. Galería de Arte Nacional, Caracas, Venezuela, September – November, 1997.
22 Pintores Venezolanos de Hoy. Universidad de Santiago y Universidad de Concepcion Chile; Biblioteca Nacional de Montevideo, Uruguay; Instituto de Arte de Lima, Peru, 1963-1964.
24 Salon Annual de Arte Venezolano, Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas, Venezuela, 1963. 
Elsa Gramcko: The Invisible Plot of Things, Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino, Houston, TX, May 13 – July 2, 2022

Publications

Rangel Gabriela, Aruna D’Souza. Elsa Gramcko: The Invisible Plot of Things. Published by Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino, James Cohan, printed by Faenza Group, Italy, 2022, p. 61.
Ramírez, Mari Carmen, Tahia Rivero, María C. Gaztambide, Josefina Manrique. Contesting Modernity. Informalism in Venezuela 1955-1975. Published by Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, reproduced in color, 2018, p. #154.
22 Pintores Venezolanos de Hoy. Published by Fundación Newmann, Caracas, reproduced in color, 1964.
Inquiry
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