An installation shot of Formal Exchange at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery includes, (in the middle of the room) Martha Boto, "Transparent Structure" (1969); (left to right) Eduardo Mac Entyre, "Generative Painting" (1969); Ary Brizzi, "Secuencias No. 1" (1969); Miguel Angel Vidal, "Focus of Light" (1969); Josefina Robirosa, "Strangers II" (1969); Miguel Ocampo, "Conjuncion" (1967); Roberto Aizenberg, "Pintura" (1968-69); Joaquin Torres-Garcia, "Abstract Art in Five Tones" and "Complementaries" (1943) and (1938).

Walking through the Albright-Knox Art Gallery today, in 2006, we don’t often think about the unusual circumstance that brought this amazing collection together—the collection that makes the gallery the world-class institution that it is. Seymour Knox, Jr. was an avid art collector with an eye that brought us many modern masterpieces before they were proclaimed such. He purchased works of art before their heyday, sometimes directly from the artist, on travels to France, Italy, New York and South America.

The South American collection represents a less obvious choice than the work coming from France and the New York School. Art history has essentially left the world of South American artists behind. Formal Exchange: The Albright-Knox and Latin America currently at the Albright-Knox makes moves to bring us up to speed, unfolds the hidden treasures that caught Knox’s consummate eye on his trips to South America.

Knox first traveled to Argentina in 1932 to play polo on the American team in the Cup of the Americas. In 1969, Knox was able to join his love for fine art and polo, when the participation of his sons, Seymour III and Northrup, on the US team in Argentina, gave him reason to return. Knox led the charge to bring master works from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery to the Museo Nacional de Bellas Arte, in Buenos Aires, Argentina that year.

“Seymour Knox was a dreamer,” says Claire Schneider, associate curator at the Albright-Knox, who organized Formal Exchange. “It probably started out as a small exhibit, but his enthusiasm doubled the size of the exhibit. Gordon Smith [the director of the gallery at the time] was certainly hesitant.”

Transporting 109 works from Buffalo to Buenos Aires was no small project. Grants of $15,000 each—a substantial amount for 1969— from Pepsi, Gillette and Ford sponsored the exhibit. The same exhibit traveled to the Yale Art Gallery and the National Gallery in New York before traveling to Argentina, and included work by Picasso, Matisse, Mondrian, Pollock, Rauschenberg and Warhol. One hundred thirty-eight thousand people viewed the exhibit in Buenos Aires in 40 days.

This was not the first time that works from the US had traveled to South America. MOMA had been sending its collection around the world since 1952, and in 1968 had sent works by artists ranging from Cézanne to Miró to Argentina, Chile and Venezuela. The Sào Paulo Biennial, founded in 1951, brought outstanding new art to Brazil from all over the world. Knox was also not the first to bring Latin American abstraction back to the US. The Walker Art Center hosted exhibitions of new work from Argentina and Brazil in 1964 and 1967. However, Formal Exchange shows what a remarkable passion Knox had for art.

Looking at the dates in the Formal Exchange exhibit, it is clear that Knox purchased a wonderful assortment of the experiential abstraction he was introduced to while in Argentina in 1969. Transparent Structure, made by Argentinean Martha Boto in 1969, is at the center of the gallery at the Albright-Knox. At four feet tall, the piece is quite dazzling; rectangles of polished plexiglass move around the rectilinear space by a motor, reflecting light. Fellow Argentinian Ary Brizzi’s Secuencias No. 1 was also made in 1969. The orange piece is five feet wide and 14 inches tall. As you move your eyes across the long work of art, the lines running vertically and diagonally shift in color.

In organizing this exhibition for the Albright-Knox, Claire Schneider looked to define some of the differences between North and South American abstraction. She found that abstraction was well suited to the Latin American upswing that followed World War II, in terms of the region’s place in the world economy. President Juscelino Kubitschek of Brazil established a new identity for his country with the commissioning of Modern architecture and art, and the founding of the entirely new capital, Brasilia. Schneider found the South American work to be more about movement and change than about power and dominance, as the American Minimalist works of Richard Serra, Donald Judd and their counterparts has come to be defined. The works in this show are more similar to Op Art, the abstraction that changes as you move in front of it and plays with the formal abilities of color and geometry.

Focus of Light is a nice example of the artist’s interest in the ethereal nature of the world. Made by Miguel Angel Vidal of Argentina in 1969, Focus of Light is a square, shimmery piece, with an octagonal form made of light lines filling the dark blue square. Many of these works—their colors and their use of overlapping lines—bring to mind the traditional weavings of South America, specifically the finely detailed and varied work made throughout Guatemala.

Joaquin Torres-Garcia of Uruguay is one of the most widely known Latin American artists, and is recognized as the father of Latin American abstraction. His is an earlier form of abstraction than these experientialists. Torres lived in the US, Spain, Italy and France, and was friendly with Mondrian and Picasso. He founded the magazine Cercle et Carré (Circle and Square) with Piet Mondrian, and founded the Latin American edition, Círculo y Cuadrado, when he returned to Uruguay in 1934. Three of his works—Abstract Art in Five Tones and Complementaries, both from 1943, and an untitled piece from 1938—are in Formal Exchange. The ties to European art is clear in his paintings, but he also incorporates Andean and ancient Incan symbols.

Lucio Fontana is perhaps the most recognizable abstract artist from Latin America—though, because he became an Italian, the fact that he was born in Argentina is often overlooked. Fontana is known for his manipulated and slashed white canvases. This exhibit includes a classic sample of this work in Spatial Concept #2, made in 1960.

Fortunately, Latin American art history is a growing field, and more and more of the rich story of the colorful and unique continent are being unearthed and brought to life for North American audiences. The University of Texas in Austin is the forerunner in this area, with their esteemed Department of Latin American Art. Jaqueline Barnitz, author of Twentieth Century Art of Latin America (University of Texas Press, 2001), the seminal text on the subject, has taught in the graduate program at UT since 1981.

In New York, MOMA is also increasing its attention to Latin American art. With the strong support of patron and collector Patricia Cisneros, MOMA has been filling in the holes that their Euro-centric collection allowed. The ease of travel in recent decades has afforded more cross-pollination between South and North America. The influence of Latin Americans who enjoy enough wealth to travel and collect art is documented in the book, Collecting Latin American Art for the 21st Century (University of Texas Press, 2002). The book includes several essays on the subject, and was edited by Mari Carmen Ramírez, curator of Latin American art and director of the International Center for the Arts of the Americas at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. A visit to Formal Exchange: The Albright-Knox and Latin America provides an exciting view of the possibilities.