Alumna's cache of Latin-American art

"Rebanho" (meaning flock or "herd), 1992, by Lia Menna Barreto of Brazil, is a textile, fabric, glass, and synthetic fiber work. (Collection of Patricia Phelps de Cisneros)

NORTON - In the same sense that every journey starts with a single step, Patricia Phelps de Cisneros's decades-long support of Latin-American art began with the purchase of a single print while a student here at Wheaton College.

Nearly four decades later, 34 works from the extensive, internationally noted Caracas-based collection of this class of 1969 alumna can be viewed in the school's Beard and Weil Galleries from Feb. 4 to April 10.

"Correspondences: Contemporary Art from the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros" includes the work of many of the most important Latin American artists of the last half-century.

While the eclectic collection spans five centuries, the art to be exhibited at Wheaton will illustrate the links among contemporary works and a number of modern artists including Alejandro Otero, Hélio Oiticica, Ana Mendieta, Sigfredo Chacón, and Ernesto Neto. Styles, according to the catalog, range from Geometric Abstraction to Madí and Arte Concreto-Invención from Argentina to Venezuelan Kineticism, Brazilian Concretism, and Neoconcretism.

A catalog of 45 illustrations accompanies the exhibit, including a preface by Cisneros and a foreword by Wheaton president Ronald A. Crutcher.

Don't expect to see mariachi-inspired characters taking siestas in the languid afternoon sun. This exhibition and arts education program focuses on Latin American art - in its purest sense - and not what Cisneros often describes as "Chiquita Banana" perceptions.

"The collection aims to show the world that there is a Latin American art that doesn't fall within the stereotypes, an art that is not necessarily figurative, dramatic, or colorful," she writes on her website. "I want to show people that there is a refinement, an elegance of thought in Latin America, which has not been appreciated until now, either because people have not known about it or have not wanted to know about it."

For her efforts, Cisneros, who splits her time between homes and offices in Caracas and New York, has earned Venezuela's highest award, the Order of Simon Bolivar; France's Cross of the Legion of Honor; and a pair of honors from Colombia's minister of culture.

Cisneros, who was traveling last week, said in a statement through her agent, "One of the most important lessons I learned at Wheaton was the value of building bridges among different cultures. That has been a driving force for everything I do. When I learned about Ronald Crutcher's expansive vision for Wheaton, I realized that in many ways this vision was about building bridges among people, cultures, subject areas. I felt that a collaboration between the CCPC and Wheaton College could advance this vision."

During a trip to Wheaton in 2003 for an honorary degree, she toured the set-building workshop behind the stage where she had performed and found the cinder block she, like all departing seniors, had painted as a legacy.

"She was very moved," recalled Wheaton art professor and gallery curator Ann Murray.

"Everyone who comes to the exhibition will react differently and take something else away from it," Murray said. "There is an historical approach to the time period of the 1940s and 1950s as when the European artists came to New York. Those serious about art history will get a real reverse view of what constituted Modernism in the years after World War II."

At the time, in Latin America, artists were creating the geometric forms that came later in New York, she said, noting that there is a whole other historical dimension. Viewers will appreciate that art doesn't have to conform to tradition, she added. "It can jump off the wall, hang in space, or it can move."

Integral to the exhibit are interpretive commentaries by 13 students in Wheaton's Hispanic studies, art history, and studio arts programs who worked with curators, educators, and college faculty on the project after a summer internship with Cisneros in New York City last summer. In addition to writing the teachers' guide, Piensa en Arte, Wheaton education students are preparing to introduce the program to kindergarten through third-grade teachers in the Norton area, who will use it to help improve students' observational, expressive-language, and critical-thinking skills.

Jennifer Valentino, a Wheaton junior from Walpole, worked with Cisneros last summer.

"The experience has made me look at myself very differently," said Valentino, 20, who leaves for a semester in Cordova, Spain, Jan. 30.

"This inspired me to work on my organization, time management, researching, and professional skills. Writing an essay to be published before graduating college is an experience that I cannot even begin to capture in words. Wonderful. Exciting."

"When I see a piece of artwork, I no longer judge it initially on an aesthetic but more on a cultural, educational, and historical basis," Valentino said.

"I have also developed a great appreciation for the artist and their personal journey demonstrated in each and every piece of artwork."

In interviews, Cisneros has said she never considered her pieces a collection until an arts writer called her in the 1990s to discuss it. Feeling a responsibility to share them with the world, she founded the Fundación Cisneros with her husband, Gustavo, an international media tycoon, and her brother-in-law, Ricardo.

Works will arrive in Norton Thursday, and students, working in shifts, will help install them. The Beard and Weil Galleries are open Monday through Saturday from 12:30 to 4:30 p.m. and closed March 7-16.