Hoodoo Stacks

Charo Oquet is a Dominican-born, Miami-based, interdisciplinary artist. Charo Oquet’s wide-reaching practice includes performance, sculpture, installation, painting, fashion, video and photography. She has exhibited, performed, curated, and lectured around the world since 1981. Oquet has received numerous awards and Artist Fellowships. She is known for her dynamic installations, which incorporate idioms of popular Afro-Caribbean religions. Her work has been featured in notable publications. Oquet’s work is found in the permanent collections in museums around the world. Oquet has had numerous solo exhibitions in Museums and galleries around the world such as the Bass Museum, Miami Beach; Casal Solleric, Palma de Mallorca, Convento de Santo Domingo, Lanzarote, Canary Islands, Spain ( curated by Antonio Zaya) and Oquet’s work has been included in numerous international exhibitions, including Relational Undercurrents: Contemporary Art of the Caribbean Archipelago, Museum of Latin American Art. Long Beach, Ca, 2017; Gaga Now! , Art, Race, and Fluidity in Dominican Republic and Haiti, Martin E. Segal Theatre, CUNY, New York, 2016; 1st. Asuncion Biennial, Salazar Museum, Asuncion, Paraguay, 2015; Be.Bop European Body Politics , Spiritual Revolutions & the Scramble for Africa: Nikolaj Kunsthal, Copenhagen, Denmark; Ballhaus Naunynstraße, Berlin Germany and Art Labour Archives, 2015; 1st Afiriperfoma Biennial Live Art Festival in Africa, Harare, Zimbabwe, 2013; Art, Religion and Politics, Pavillion of (2005) curated by Jean-Hubert Martin, Mami Watta, curated by Henry Drewal at the Fowler Museum at UCLA,(2008); Subliminals, Beijing , China; (2007); Away, at the UNESCO Head Quarters – Paris (2006); After Columbus.com, Kunstnerne Hus, Oslo, Norway, (2003); V Biennal del Caribe’03, ’01, Museo de Arte Moderno de Santo Domingo; En Ruta PR’02, M&M Projects Puerto Rico, curated by Antonio Zaya; Centro Atlantico de Arte Moderno, (CAAM) Gran Canarias, Spain as well as the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, N.Z. Oquet’s work is in several of museum collections such as the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art, Frost Art Museum, Florida International University, Miami, FL; CAAM, Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno, Word Bank, Las Palmas de Gran Canarias, Spain; Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach, Florida; New Zealand National Museum, Wellington, N.Z.; Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt, New Zealand; Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth, New Zealand; Foresight Collection, Auckland, New Zealand; Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Wellington, New Zealand; Gulf & Western Americas Corp., New York; Museo de las Casas Reales, Dominican Republic and Museo del Arte Moderno, Dominican Republic. As an art activist, she founded Edge Zones, a non-profit arts organization in Miami, FL, The Miami Performance Festival, and Zones Art Fair Miami. Oquet is the author of SuperMix, Wet 2, Wet, Arrayanos Portraits and Arrayanos Interiors. As the artistic director of Edge Zones and the festivals, she has curated numerous exhibitions and festivals since 2003.

The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw sweeping social change and major scientific advances — both of which contributed to a new aesthetic: modernism. Rejecting the rigidity of Victorian artistic conventions, modernists sought a new means of expression. References to the natural world and ornate classical embellishments gave way to the sleek simplicity of the Machine Age. Architect Philip Johnson characterized the hallmarks of modernism as “machine-like simplicity, smoothness or surface [and] avoidance of ornament.”

Early practitioners of modernist design include the De Stijl (“The Style”) group, founded in the Netherlands in 1917, and the Bauhaus School, founded two years later in Germany.

Followers of both groups produced sleek, spare designs — many of which became icons of daily life in the 20th century. The modernists rejected both natural and historical references and relied primarily on industrial materials such as metal, glass, plywood, and, later, plastics. While Bauhaus principals Marcel Breuer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe created furniture from mass-produced, chrome-plated steel, American visionaries like Charles and Ray Eames worked in materials as novel as molded plywood and fiberglass. Today, Breuer’s Wassily chair, Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona chair — crafted with his romantic partner, designer Lilly Reich — and the Eames lounge chair are emblems of progressive design and vintage originals are prized cornerstones of collections.

It’s difficult to overstate the influence that modernism continues to wield over designers and architects — and equally difficult to overstate how revolutionary it was when it first appeared a century ago. But because modernist furniture designs are so simple, they can blend in seamlessly with just about any type of décor. Don’t overlook them.

Abstract sculpture has evolved over time with artists making a variety of striking statements in stone, bronze, ceramic and other materials. In the collection of abstract sculptures on 1stDibs, you are sure to find a piece that is perfect for your space.

When exploring how to arrange furniture and decor, consider color, texture and what kind of energy it should evoke. Abstract sculpture can elevate any home through its many decorative possibilities.

Auguste Rodin is often called the father of modern sculpture for his pioneering naturalistic forms and figures that vividly express emotion. His work in the 19th and early 20th centuries broke with artistic conventions and inspired modernism, leading to a new period of avant-garde abstraction.

Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque were among the first artists to push abstract sculpture into the mainstream. They helped define the Cubism movement, which focused on deconstructing the world abstractly. Other 20th-century artistic movements, including Italian Futurism, Dadaism, Neo-Dadaism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism, all contributed to the advancement of abstract sculpture. Italian Futurism, for example, celebrated movement, dynamics and technology in abstract sculpture. These movements continue to inform abstract sculpture today.

With abstract art — sculpture, painting or a grouping of prints — a work can complement a living room, dining room or other space, or it can act as a bold focal point.

Browse a range of modern abstract sculptures, postmodern abstract sculptures and other sculptures on 1stDibs.