The formulas this manifesto offers for abstraction exalt its expressive potential as works are created, as well as the force of the artistic phenomenon as it is enjoyed by viewers. Flexor affirms that “a painting does not represent, rather it presents.” This idea illustrates the concept that abstraction achieves real artistic autonomy through its pure presence; an abstract painting does not hold to or suggest any other meanings that are not the “pure” elements of its composition.
Written four years after the grupo ruptura manifesto (by Lothar Charoux, Waldemar Cordeiro, Luiz Sacilotto, et al.) [see ICAA digital archive (doc. no. 771349)], this Atelier Abstração document brings to light Samson Flexor’s misgivings against the “sterile exaggerations” of an “industrial and simplistic geometry,” which was undoubtedly a criticism against the proposals of concrete art, which was at the height of its influence during those years. The painters of the Abstração group, in turn, demonstrated that “non-figurative” painting was capable of combining order and sensibility through “a diversity of concepts,” in a way that reflected the great “variety of personalities” represented by the group’s painters.