Poema Pedagógico IV (Pedagogic Poem IV)

Label Text Maps, theater designs, genealogical charts, plans, and musical scores serve as sources of inspiration for Guillermo Kuitca’s work. Each represents an abstract system in which symbols stand in for elements in the world, such as built environments or sounds. In Poema Pedagógico IV, the artist uses simple graphite marks to suggest a gridded space that is itself composed of smaller grids. Each grid contains thirty shapes, joined by a thirty-first that is positioned next to a rectangle. The title of the piece translates as “pedagogical poem” and is drawn from Soviet writer Anton Makarenko’s Road to Life (1933–35), a novel based on the author’s experience of rehabilitating juvenile offenders at a reeducation center in the Soviet Union. The arrangement of shapes recalls a classroom in which all of the human elements have been reduced to anonymous, disembodied units—an allegory for how individualism can be repressed by institutional authority.
Exhibition History"Guillermo Kuitca: Graphite Paintings from The Tablada Suite (1992) and Poema Pedagógico (1996)," Sperone Westwater Gallery, New York, 3 November - 20 December 2022.

“Contra la Arquitectura: La urgencia de (re)pensar la ciudad,” Espai d’Art Contemporani de Castello, 27 April – 25 June 2000.

“Guillermo Kuitca,” Centro de Arte Hélio Oiticica, Rio de Janeiro, 9 April – 23 May 1999.

"Guillermo Kuitca: Poema Pedagógico," Sperone Westwater Gallery, New York, 3 May - 7 June 1997.
Published ReferencesPepe Karmel, "Guillermo Kuitca: Drawn Paintings," Sperone Westwater Gallery, New York, 2022, ill. p. 73 and back cover.

"Contra la Arquitectura: La urgencia de (re)pensar la ciudad," Castello: ESPAI d’Art Contemporani de Castello, 2000, ill. p. 216.

"Guillermo Kuitca," Rio de Janeiro: Centro de Arte Hélio Oiticica, 1999, ill. p. 95.

"Gullermo Kuitca: Obras 1982-1998 – Conversaciones con Graciela Speranza," Santafé de Bogota, Colombia: Editorial Norma S.A., 1998, ill. p. 194.

"Guillermo Kuitca: Poema Pedagógico," Sperone Westwater Gallery, New York, 1997, ill. pl. IV.

DimensionsCanvas: 74 × 75 × 1 11/16 in. (188 × 190.5 × 4.3 cm)

Accession Number 2023.31

Classificationspainting

SignedKuitca 1996 (verso, u,r graphite)

ProvenanceArtist; (Sperone Westwater Gallery, New York); Private Collection; (Sperone Westwater Gallery, New York); Des Moines Art Center [purchased from the previous, 2023]