Cossette Zeno, Antología

May 28th, 2015- August 29th, 2015

Exhibit in Museo de Caguas (Caguas, Puerto Rico)- 2015

Cossette Zeno, Anthology (Retrospective show)

Cossette Zeno, Anthology is a retrospective exhibition of one of the first surrealist artists of the Caribbean and the Americas. The exhibition presents a selection of more than fifty pieces among paintings, mixed media, collages and drawings and reviews the important contributions by the artist from its beginnings to the present time. The exhibition begins in the 1950’s. Her oeuvre unfolds with a strong feminist discourse, long before gender theories on art were formally declared.

Cossette Zeno began her career in 1950, after entering the Rio Piedras Campus at the University of Puerto Rico (UPR). She met Eugenio Fernández Granell, who was her teacher and mentor. Zeno began to express herself  in the surrealist style practiced in the modernist school founded by Granell in Puerto Rico. In 1953 she exhibited at the University of Puerto Rico with a controversial solo exposition called Desire, which presented a strong view on feminist issues that were ahead of its time. 

She later received a scholarship to pursue graduate studies in Paris with the author of the Surrealist Manifesto, André Breton. Cossette Zeno managed to join the circle of Breton thanks to a letter written by Granell. She worked in Paris with key figures of the surrealist movement such as Meret Oppenheim, Toyen and Benjamin Peret, among others. The artist is still actively producing art and working on expositions.