Sarah Grilo: Permanent Collection | MoMA, New York
Sarah Grilo’s Add (1965) is currently on view as part of Calligraphic Abstraction, one of The Museum of Modern Art’s ongoing collection galleries. The exhibition brings together artists from around the world who, during the 1950s and 1960s, explored the expressive potential of calligraphy within abstract art. It situates these practices within a historical context shaped, on the one hand, by political independence movements and the emergence of newly formed nations and, on the other, by military dictatorships and the tensions of the Cold War.
Some of the featured artists left their home countries to escape difficult circumstances or seek new opportunities abroad, while others, based in cities such as New York and Paris, incorporated influences from Eastern philosophy and aesthetics into their work. Despite their diverse backgrounds and trajectories, they shared an interest in religious traditions, cultural heritage, and everyday symbols as sources of artistic inspiration, as well as a desire to unite intuition and emotion through fluid, gestural brushwork. Within this context, Grilo’s Add reflects the artist’s engagement with the visual language of the modern city, incorporating fragments of letters, numbers, and gestural marks that evoke the rhythms and visual stimuli of New York, where she lived and worked during the 1960s.
The selection of works highlights a range of calligraphic approaches and writing systems that characterize mid-century modernism. From refined reinterpretations of Arabic script and compositions built from words, letters, and transformed texts to abstract marks and spontaneous gestures, the exhibition reveals the expressive vitality and communicative power of calligraphic abstraction.
The exhibition is organized by Smooth Nzewi, The Steven and Lisa Tananbaum Curator, Department of Painting and Sculpture, The Museum of Modern Art, with Danielle Johnson, former Curatorial Assistant, Department of Drawings and Prints.
