Antonio Asis began studying art at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes when he was 14. Subsequently, at the Escuela de Bellas Artes Prilidiano Pueyrredón, he studied composition with Héctor Cartier, who encouraged the young artist to explore the many diverse applications of the principles of design and composition. The class was influential for Asis, as were the after-class conversations with his classmates, which continued at the Bar Splendid, a local café at the intersection of Ayacucho and la Avenida Las Heras in Buenos Aires. Throughout the 1940s, Asis explored abstraction and non-representational art; with the publication of Arturo magazine in 1944, and the creation of the Asociación Arte Concreto-Invención, Buenos Aires was an important site for the development of post-war abstraction. In the spring of 1956, Asis moved to Paris, like many of his colleagues and friends, where he quickly became part of an international circuit of kinetic artists; among others, he befriended Yaacob Agam, Nicolas Schöffer, Jesús-Rafael Soto, Jean Tinguely, and Victor Vasarely. Surrounded by this dynamic milieu, he began a series of work in which he considered how the phenomena of light could be mediated through photography. Shortly afterward, he began to study vibrations between colors and the many possibilities within monochromatic compositions. Like many of his rioplatense colleagues, Asis was deeply influenced by the ideas of Max Bill and Georges Vantongerloo, important artists and theorists of European abstraction. In 1971, Asis co-founded an artist group, Position, which included Carlos Agüero, Armando Durante, Hugo Demarco, and Horacio García Rossi, all Argentine artists living in Paris, and all interested in movement and the vibrations of light. Antonio Asis lives and works in Paris, France. SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2012: Antonio Asis Un Universo Vibrante, MUNTREF Museo Nacional de Tres de Febrero, Buenos Aires, Argentina?
2007: Chromatic Energies, Sicardi Gallery, Houston, Texas?
1984: Centre de Recherche Artistique Contemporaine, Verifica 8 +, Venice, Italy?
1972: Maison de la Culture, Rennes, France?
1971: Estudio Actual, Caracas, Venezuela?
Antonio Asis's work has also been shown in important group exhibitions, including Real/Virtual, Arte Cinético argentino de los años sesenta, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires (2012); Les sites de l'abstraction latino-américaine – Ella Fontanals Cisneros, Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich (2011); Asis/Esmeraldo/Espinosa/Lizarraga, Works on Paper, Sicardi Gallery, Houston (2011); Los sitios de la abstraccion latinoamericana, Museo de Arte Moderno Contemporaneo de Palmas de Mallorca, Spain (2010);? North Looks South: Building the Latin American Art Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (2009); and Los Cinéticos, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain (2007). SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Collection Ella Fontanals Cisneros
Jean and Colette Cherqui Collection
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston