COSMOCOSA

About the Gallery
Cosmocosa offers a complete overview of modern and contemporary art from Latin America to its clients and collectors, through the promotion of a forward thinking model on the gallery’s practice. Through intergenerational representation, we promote the most radical contemporary proposals along with “masters” of Latin American art. The dialogue between past and present is a constant in our gallery programme and art fair participation. Through our curatorial research and artists’ representation we aim to make valuable contributions to international historiography, as well as to make it accessible to collectors, curators and art lovers.

About the Presentation
Cosmocosa will present work by Luis Frangella in a solo presentation at Independent 20th Century. A central figure in the East Village art scene, Luis Frangella played a pivotal role in shaping the artistic landscapes of 1980s New York, Buenos Aires, and Madrid—communities later devastated by the AIDS epidemic. A mentor and collaborator to artists such as David Wojnarowicz, Frangella was a key presence at the seminal Civilian Warfare Gallery, where he shared his bold and expressive painting techniques. His massive, commanding works became emblematic of the era, as he exhibited with his peers alongside the meteoric figures of Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring.

Frangella was also immortalized in the portraits of Peter Hujar, Marion Scemama, Eric Kroll, Andreas Sterzing, and Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, among others. As a cultural pollinator, his annual travels between cities carried not just artwork but also ideas, collaborations, and exhibitions. Through this ongoing exchange, he helped weave the interconnected fabric of the international 1980s art world and contributed significantly to the multicultural ethos that defined New York’s creative scene.

In recent years, Frangella’s work has gained renewed attention from both institutional and private collectors, with acquisitions and exhibitions by The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Rubell Collection, and the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires (Moderno), among others. A vital presence in niche collections, Frangella is long overdue for wider visibility and for a place at the forefront of contemporary art history.