Abraham Palatnik, Brazilian Kinetic Art Pioneer, Dies at 91

Abraham Palatnik, a Brazilian kinetic art pioneer, has died after contracting COVID-19. His groundbreaking 1949 work Aparelho Cinecromático featured 600 meters of electric wires connecting 101 lamps with rotating colored cylinders, earning an honorable mention at the 1st Bienal de São Paulo in 1951 despite being ineligible for the grand prize. Critic Mário Pedrosa called it 'the true art of the future.' Palatnik's career spanned diverse media, including wood reliefs from 1962 and motorized kinetic sculptures called Objetos cinéticos starting in 1964. He participated in numerous international exhibitions that established kinetic art as a movement, including shows at Denise René gallery in Paris, Brussels Palace of Fine Arts, Eindhoven Art Museum, San Francisco Museum of Art, Howard Wise Gallery in New York, and Pallazo Reale in Milan. His work was featured in multiple Bienal de São Paulo editions (1953, 1955, 1959, 1961, 1965–1969) and other biennials in Venice (1964), Cordoba (1966), and Mercosul (1997, 2005). Palatnik was associated with Brazilian art movements Grupo Ruptura (1952), Grupo Frente (1954), Concretism (1956), and Neo-Concretism (1969). Born in Natal, Rio Grande do Norte to Ukrainian Jewish immigrants, he worked primarily in Rio de Janeiro. Critic Juergen Morschel noted that Palatnik 'does not execute objects, but rather stages events' in his 1965 Saint Gallen Museum exhibition.