Noé, Luis Felipe (1933–)

Luis Felipe Noé is an Argentine artist. Born on May 26, 1933, in Buenos Aires, Noé studied with Horacio Butler. Preoccupied with the chaotic modern world, Noé expressed his concerns by making figure and background hardly distinguishable from each other by using gestural brushstrokes, accidental painting, collage, and fragmented canvases. He was a cofounder of the New Figuration group in 1961, the same year that he painted his Federal Series, which includes Agonic Image of Dorrego and General Quiroga Travels to His Death, a depiction of the anarchy that characterized the Federal period in Argentine history. In these paintings he used primarily black and red to convey a climate of passion and death.

In 1964 Noé moved to New York City, where he had a Guggenheim Fellowship (1965–1966). During this period he wrote Antiestética (Antiesthetic), in which he argued that artists must focus on the act of creation rather than on traditional composition and techniques. At this time he began to experiment with concave mirrors to create chaotic environments but abandoned art in 1968 and devoted his time to teaching and organizing public painting experiences. In 1971 he published Una sociedad colonial avanzada (An Advanced Colonial Society), a satirical view of Argentina and Latin America. He resumed painting in 1975 with Nature and Myths and Conquest and Destruction of Nature, two series of colorful natural landscapes populated by mythical creatures in a state of metamorphosis. In 1976 he moved to Paris, where he lived until 1986, exhibiting frequently in Buenos Aires. After he made a trip to the Amazon in 1980, nature prevailed over mythical references in his work.

In 1987 Noé returned to Buenos Aires, where he further explored the genre of landscape on oversized canvases. He was invited to present his work at La Bienal de Cuenca, in Ecuador, in 1994 and at the Salón Nacional de la Provincial de Santa Fé, in Buenos Aires, in 1995. The Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, in Buenos Aires, organized a retrospective of his work in 1995. In 2007 Noé was at work on a book, La pintura desnuda (Naked painting), and compiling essays for a book to be titled No escritos.

See alsoArt: The Twentieth Century .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Gilbert Chase, Contemporary Art in Latin America (1970), pp. 153-154.

Mercedes Casanegra, Luis Felipe Noé (1988).

Additional Bibliography

Glusberg, Jorge. "Luis Felipe Noé: La Asunción del Caos." ArteUna (1995). Available from http://www.arteuna.com/Info.htm.

Glusberg, Jorge, and Luis Felipe Noé. Lectura Conceptual de una Trayectoria. Buenos Aires: Centro de Artes y Comunicación, 1993.

Melazzini, Santiago. El pintor Luis Felipe Noé. Buenos Aires: La Marca Editora, 2005.

Noé, Luis Felipe. A Oriente por Occidente. Bogotá: Dos Gráficos, 1992.

Noé, Luis Felipe. "El otro, la otra y la otredad." Buenos Aires: IMPSAT, 1994.

Noé, Luis Felipe. Una Sociedad Colonial Avanzada: 1971–2003. Buenos Aires: Asunto Impreso, 2003.

                                          Marta Garsd