Artists of the 20th century were daringly experimental and profoundly influential, and they continue to inspire contemporary artists today. Berlin-based Chilean painter Pablo Benzo is one artist who champions the historic art movements of the time with his dreamlike paintings that capture the past and present.
Benzo is inspired by the Cubist and Surrealist artists who rejected realism and instead looked inward to convey something that speaks to our shared human experience. “To me, 20th-century art is like a language of intuition,” Benzo tells My Modern Met. “A time when artists broke open the surface of reality to explore what lies beneath. It was a century of courage, of dissolving forms and reassembling them through feeling, memory, and movement.” The artist adds, “I see it not just as a historical reference, but as an emotional inheritance.”
Across his work, Benzo plays with perspective, painting “pictures within pictures” in ways that echo early Cubism. In one piece, titled Vestige of an imagined encounter, two paintings are depicted in an interior room scene, hung above an abstract sofa and lamp. In another work, titled Memories Fade, Benzo portrays a distorted figure of a male artist painting a female nude on a canvas.
Benzo paints what he can’t quite put into words, such as “sensations, contradictions, and the quiet mystery of presence.” Curved, disjointed, and velvety forms depict disproportionate human figures, landscapes, and familiar objects free from rules. Benzo explains, “They live in a space where logic bends and color breathes with its own rhythm.”
If you’re in New York, you can experience Benzo’s work up close at The Hole gallery. The five new paintings and six works on paper on display are influenced by Peggy Guggenheim’s 1940s exhibition, Art of This Century, which helped introduce Surrealism and Cubism to New York audiences. His first New York solo exhibition, Time Traveler and Other Fragile Detours, opens September 5 and runs through October 11, 2025.
Berlin-based Chilean painter Pablo Benzo reimagines Cubism with his dreamlike paintings evoking the past and present.
Curved, disjointed, and velvety forms depict disproportionate human figures, landscapes, and familiar objects free from rules.
Benzo's first New York solo exhibition, Time Traveler and Other Fragile Detours, showcases his latest work at The Hole gallery.
Exhibition Information:
Pablo Benzo
Time Traveler And Other Fragile Detours
September 5, 2025–October 11, 2025
The Hole
86 Walker Street, New York City, NY 10013, U.S.A.
Pablo Benzo: Instagram
My Modern Met granted permission to feature photos by Pablo Benzo.
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