Lygia Clark invites play through experimentation and sculpture
If Lygia Clark’s New York exhibition is anything to go by, her latest show in London will exceed all expectations of an art gallery visit.
The I and the You at Whitechapel Gallery, in Whitechapel High Street, marks the first major UK public gallery presentation of the pioneering Brazilian artist.
When Ms Clark’s work was shown at MoMA in New York 10 years ago, visitors were invited to place bags of loosely woven mesh over their heads, try on spectacles made of saucers and experiment with an assortment of masks.
The exhibition was a resounding success and she was praised for bringing the fun back into exhibited art.
Now, her works are set to take over Whitechapel’s gallery from October 2, 2024, until January 12, 2025, in an exhibition that promises interactive and experimental works spanning 30 years of the artist’s career.
Ms Clark, who died in 1988, began her life in art as a painter and leading figure in the Brazilian neo-concretist movement.
From 1959 to 1961, Ms Clark joined artists like Amilcar de Castro, Ferreira Gullar, Hélio Oiticica and Lygia Pape, in a push for greater experimentation, expression and colour in their practices after becoming frustrated with the limitations of the dominant ‘concrete art’ of the time.
This led to Ms Clark making abstract sculptures. Her work played between form and formlessness which eventually led her towards what she came to see as a kind of therapy, in which objects took the place of speech and gesture.
This journey is central to the exhibition, which reveals how Ms Clark’s early experimentation led to a closure of the gap between the work and the viewer.
The exhibition opens with a series of paintings, studies and works on paper which trace her increasingly intuitive approach towards composition.
Through these works, Ms Clark also became engaged in finding new ways for audiences – who she would later refer to as ‘participants’ – to physically interact with her artworks.
The exhibition also features examples of the artists Bichos – beasts or ‘critters’, consisting of geometric shapes joined by hinges which were designed to be manipulated or worn by the viewer.
Replica models of Bichos and other participatory works will be included in the exhibition which visitors will be able to touch, interact with and wear.
The last part of The I and the You presents some of Clark’s participatory group work, developed during her time in Paris following the May 1968 protests.
Having fled the increasingly repressive political environment in Brazil, her work in France sought to bridge the boundaries of art by exploring group dynamics.
These works will be shown through a series of performances, taking place every Saturday throughout the exhibition run.
Lygia Clark: The I and the You is co-curated by Anglo-Brazilian art scholar Michael Asbury, artist and educator Sonia Boyce, and Whitechapel Gallery Director, Gilane Tawadros, in collaboration with the Associação Cultural Lygia Clark.
Pictured top: Lygia Clark and one of her works (Picture: Whitechapel Gallery/ Associação Cultural Lygia Clark)