Rosemarie Castoro. Focus at Infinity

Rosemarie Castoro (New York, 1939–2015) lived and worked in New York at a time when Minimalism and Conceptualism dominated the artistic scene of this city. She actively collaborated in the Art Workers’ Coalition with artists such as Carl Andre, Hollis Frampton, Sol LeWitt and Yvonne Rainer, among others, and with feminist groups. Although she began her career in the field of graphic arts, as evidenced by the importance of drawing in her work, she was also interested in dance. While studying at the Pratt Institute in New York, she choreographed and performed her own productions. Although she opted for painting, what distinguishes her work is precisely the way she interprets the space from the perspective of dance and the dialogue between these two artistic forms. Indeed, dance played a key role in her diaries, with performative photographs of her works, described by the artist as ‘containers’ and stage-sets for the body. Extending the concept of ‘intermedia’, Castoro’s work ranges from pictorial abstraction to performative actions in the street and in her studio, as well as poetry, postal art, sculpture, installations and land art. Her first exhibitions, in the early 1970s, were at the Tibor Nagy Gallery in New York. In addition to exhibiting her work in galleries in New York, Paris and London, she also exhibited at the American Center in Paris (1983) and the Newark Museum, New Jersey (1991). In 2017, MACBA, Barcelona, organised the artist’s first major retrospective. Her work is part of collections such as MoMA, New York; Centre national des arts plastiques, Paris; Newark Museum, New Jersey; and MACBA, Barcelona.