ART CITIES:N.York- Lygia Pape

Lygia Pape, Divisor, 1967, Performance at Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro, 1990, Photo: Paula Pape, © Projeto Lygia Pape, Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art

Lygia Pape was an influential iconoclast Brazilian artist and pioneering member of the postwar avant-garde. She worked across an expansive range of media, including painting, drawing, prints, sculpture, film, performance, poetry, and installation. Pape embraced the ideals of Concrete art and geometric abstraction and later was an active participant in the Neo Concrete movement that championed experimentation and chance. During this time, she created participatory works that questioned the space between artist and viewer, as well as the social context of art itself.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Metropolitan Museum of Art Archive

Lygia Pape’s retrospective at Metropolitan Museum of Art, under the title “A Multitude of Forms” covers a prolific, unclassifiable career that spanned 50 years and examines Pape’s extraordinarily rich oeuvre as manifest across varied media, from sculpture, prints, and painting to installation, performance, and film., Alongside Lygia Clark and Hélio Oiticica, Lygia Pape is one of the most prominent artists of her generation and was a leading protagonist at a crucial moment for the history of art in Brazil. During a period of intense industrialization following World War II, concrete and constructivist European trends entered the country where figuration had been the dominant vocabulary. Pape was part of the Concrete movement (Grupo Frente) in Rio de Janeiro, reworking the legacies of geometric abstraction. It then evolved in 1959 into the Neoconcrete group, aimed at giving priority to experimentation and process over any normative principle. She was among the first to consider integrating the space of the artwork with the space of the viewer with works that demand participation or interaction, marking a breakthrough moment in 20th Century art. The exhibition presents a selection of paintings, drawings, and reliefs from the ‘50s, including a select series of her woodcuts “Tecelares”, a section devoted to her series of experimental books, including “Livro da criação” (1959–60) and “Livro do tempo” (1961–63), epitomes of Neoconcretism and Pape’s performance and participatory works, such as her memorable living sculpture “Divisor” (1968) and “Roda dos prazeres” (1968). Popular culture and vernacular architecture were important references in Pape’s work during the repressive years of dictatorship that followed Brazil’s period of modernization. The exhibition brings together her photographic series of urban life in Rio de Janeiro such as “Espaços imantados” (1982 and 1995) and “Favela da Maré” (1974-76). It presents a selection of her experimental films and her collaborations with the influential filmmakers of Cinema Novo. Also on presentation are her later series of sculptural works and installations including “Amazoninos” (1989-92), “Banquete tupinambá” (2000), and “Ttéia” (1976-2004). The public is invited on 25/3/17 to join a reenactment of Lygia Pape’s performance “Divisor” (1968), in a procession from The Met Fifth Avenue to The Met Breuer. This staging of this seminal work, revisits Pape’s embrace of experimentation, process, contingency, experience, and desire to break down the space between the art and the viewer.

Info: Curators: Iria Candela & Estrellita B. Brodsky, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Met Breuer, 945 Madison Avenue, New York, Duration 21/3-23/7/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Thu & Sun 10:00-17:30, Fri-Sat 10:00-21:00, www.metmuseum.org

Lygia Pape, Livro do tempo, 1961-63, Tempera and acrylic on wood, 365 pieces, each piece: 16 x 16 x 3.2 cm, Photo: Paula Pape, © Projeto Lygia Pape, Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art
Lygia Pape, Livro do tempo, 1961-63, Tempera and acrylic on wood, 365 pieces, each piece: 16 x 16 x 3.2 cm, Photo: Paula Pape, © Projeto Lygia Pape, Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art

 

 

Lygia Pape, Ttéia 1–C, 1976-2004, Dimensions variable, Installation View at Serpentine Gallery-London-2011, Golden thread, nails, wood, light, Photo: Paula Pape, © Projeto Lygia Pape, Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art
Lygia Pape, Ttéia 1–C, 1976-2004, Dimensions variable, Installation View at Serpentine Gallery-London-2011, Golden thread, nails, wood, light, Photo: Paula Pape, © Projeto Lygia Pape, Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art