Latin American Geometric Abstraction
Since 1987
Elizabeth Hazim de Castillo founded Galería Art Nouveau in Maracaibo, Venezuela, in 1987 with the goal of providing the country’s second largest city with a well-grounded art gallery dedicated to promoting and showcasing works by prominent emerging, mid-career and established masters with a focus on Abstraction and Geometric Abstraction.
As a result of Ms. Hazim de Castillo’s strong background in Interior Design and Art History along with a loyal commitment to her passion, her gallery in Venezuela consistently grew robust and gravitated towards projecting itself locally and internationally, both through exhibitions and regular participation in international art fairs, thereby progressively broadening its outreach since 1998.
Despite the political and social turmoil that Venezuela has faced over the past 20 years, the Gallery has continued to work tirelessly in support of hundreds of exhibitions, representing a plethora of artists since its inception, among them Jesús Soto, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Jacobo Borges, Osvaldo Vigas, Lía Bermúdez, Francisco Bellorín and Francisco Hung among many others. By 2005 Ms. Hazim de Castillo had also established a solid reputation and presence in South Florida, contributing to the successful launch in 2010 of a sister gallery, Art Nouveau Gallery in Miami.
Fast-forward thirty years and today she is still the proud owner of one of the most solid and prestigious galleries in Venezuela, and has established, through Art Nouveau Gallery in Miami, an important presence in the city’s expanding arts scene, fully leveraging her location in Wynwood, the epicenter of the city’s arts and design hub.
Through time, Art Nouveau Gallery’s artistic agenda has focused mostly, but not exclusively, on geometric abstraction (geometry, conceptual, constructive and kinetic art) with a strong emphasis on Venezuelan and Latin American artists, showcasing all along a broad swath of available media: painting, sculpture, commissioned works in public and private spaces, drawing, multiples and objects.
Beyond the gallery’s immediate artistic program, it also participates in international art fairs, publishes art catalogs and helps artists in the development of special projects, such as its involvement with Rafael Barrios’ monumental installation on Park Avenue in New York City in 2012.
A key to her success has been that, over time, her core values have remained constant: to support and promote the works of artists; to aid collectors and small buyers in building their collections; to project artists’ works into strong collections and museums; and to guarantee the quality and trust of the galleries’ client portfolio through a solid roster of artists coupled with serious commitments and collaborative pairings with highlyexperienced professionals in the field, such as curators, art historians and museographers.The accomplishment of a gallery’s mission depends largely on its ability to focus relentlessly on putting into perspective the ideas and lines of work it represents. In the case of Art Nouveau Gallery, the promotion and development of
art from Latin America and Venezuela in particular has been of paramount concern and among the gallery’s most important achievements over the years, both in Venezuela and abroad.
Art Nouveau Gallery remains committed to the promotion of artists from Venezuela and Latin America and continues to nurture the city of Miami, showcasing significant works by the renowned as well as the up and coming generation of artists she represents. In Miami, Ms. Hazim de Castillo has incorporated fewer artists in the roster, combining established and emerging names such as Alberto Cavalieri, Rafael Barrios, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Arturo Quintero, Paul Amundarain, Héctor Ramírez, Sydia Reyes, Lía Bermúdez, Galvao, and Ventoso, to name a few, further positioning their work in an international market as she continues tirelessly to project their careers into the future.
In 2012, the widely-acclaimed kinetic artist Carlos Cruz Diez’s remarked on Elizabeth Hazim de
Castillo’s trajectory: “In the game of buying and selling, there are those who buy and sell any kind of product: the good, the bad and the ugly, with the sole motive of obtaining an economic benefit from the transaction.
There are others, smart, sensible souls blessed with critical analytical skills who are capable of identifying those “products” that are truly worth promoting and who will share the pleasure of each discovery with others around them. My dear and admired friend of so many years, Elizabeth Hazim de Castillo, who directs Art Nouveau Gallery sits squarely in this last group. A passionate business-woman and art lover, she has moved mountains to tirelessly promote art and artists within the boundaries of Venezuela and beyond…. she has been doing this nonstop for 30 years, with pleasure, passion and artistic “savoir faire.” I met her in 1997 for the first time when I had a solo exhibition at her gallery in Maracaibo. Now, from a fabulous and bright gallery in Miami, she invites all to contemplate what she firmly stands for… “