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Neo-Concretism

 The splinter group defined as “Neo-concretism” takes a position relative to non-figurative, “geometric” art (constructivism, suprematism, etc) and perhaps more importantly the art concret. The art concret was a group of Avante-garde artist formed in Paris who championed geometrical abstract art through the early 1930’s. Through this period, they succumbed to a large amount of rationalism within their art. Working as painters, sculptors, and writers, the artists who joined in the Neo-concretist exhibition have all been led, by personal experiences, to reevaluate the theoretical positions adopted by the art concret. The idea was that none of these positions allowed for a satisfying response to the expressive possibilities given to us by our experiences. The called for great sensuality, color, and feeling in concrete art.

 

                  In 1959, poet critics Ferreira Gullar and Theon Spanudis published the Neo-concrete Manifesto. In it, they say that say the movement was born from a need to express the complicated reality of the modern man by a structural language. This language of new forms denies the validity of scientific attitudes within the arts and brings about the problems of expression. By substituting ideas of scientific objectivity, rationalism strips art of all its autonomy. The work of artists like Mondrian, Gabo, Pevsner, etc., demonstrate that the geometrical vocabulary of Neo-concretism must take on the expression of complex human reality. They struggle to find the line between concepts of mechanical form with concepts of expressive form. And although the first participants in this movement did not necessarily form a group of dogmatic principles, they reaffirmed the independence of artistic creation in relation to both objective and practical knowledge.

Planos em Superfície Modulada

Lygia Clark

c. 1957.

Formica and industrial paint on wood

Courtesy Associação Cultural “O Mundo de Lygia Clark”

Muesum of Modern Art, New York

 

Lygia Clark played a key role in the Neo-Construtivist movement and was part of the group of talent that hailed from Brazil. She spent time with and was influenced by her artist friends Lygia Pape and Hélio Oiticica, who are also featured within the Bohemian Grove gallery. The artwork itself is part of a series titled “Superfície Modulada”; this is the second composition.Formica and industrial paint on wood was used and manipulated to form a 3D-like perspective on a flat surface. In her life long pursuit of the abandonment of art her work is described as, “A break which defined a new position within the evolution in contemporary art. The word “organic” is the key term.”

 

Sêco 12

Hélio Oiticica

1957

Gauche on cardboard

César and Claudio Oiticica Collection, Rio de Janeiro

 

Consisting of 27 total paintings, Oiticica's Sêco collection strives to free itself of representation and present color in itself. Organic but geometric forms are favored over the rational, keeping with the Neo-Concrete preference for expressing the experience of man. Minimal colors are used, limiting the scheme to reds and whites on a plain background, preventing any sort of relationship between color and background. The organic shapes are placed at random, creating a sense of uncertainty within the painting, all while still maintaining a rhythm. 

Bicho (Máquina)

Lygia Clark

1962

Gilded metal with hinges

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

 

Clark's Bicho completely rejects logic and creates geometric abstraction that requires the viewer to move around the sculpture. The Bicho collection is meant to study the broken down formal elements of line, plane, and surface, all of which have been eloquently captured by the intricate mix of angles, edges, and rounded edges throughout the piece. Each element of the sculpture is revealed when to viewer walks around, exhibiting an organic form as the name suggests (bicho meaning critter in Portuguese). Furthermore, the hinges of the project remind one of the spinal column found in nature.

 

Spatial Relief

Hélio Oiticica

1959

Polyvinyl acetate resin on plywood

César and Claudio Oiticica Collection, Rio de Janeiro, Tate Muesum

 

Hélio Oiticica joined the Neo-Concrete movement in 1960 with this piece, Spatial Relief. This was a groundbreaking piece made of hanging plywood that effectively liberated color into hree-dimensional space. When viewed at different angles this piece is completely transformed. This piece would be viewed with is hanging from the ceiling so you would be able to view it at all angles to get the full effect.

 

Nonconcrete Relief

Hélio Oiticica

1960

Oil on wood

37 7/8 x 51 1/4" (96 x 130 cm)

Gift of Patricia Phelps de Cisneros in honor of Gary Garrels, Currently not on display.

 

Nonconcrete Relief by Hélio Oiticica was created in 1960. This piece is both a painting and an object that questions the identity and function of a three dimensional plane. This piece of art belongs to a collection of paintings that the artist, Hélio Oiticica created as manifestos for a disruption with the old-fashioned rectangular picture plane. It has been reduced to two colors on wood, it is an abstract work in which the plane functions actively, rather than as a backing for figures or colors.

Metaesquema

Hélio Oiticica

1958

Gauche on board

Muesum of Modern Art, New York, Not on view

 

Part of a series, this piece created by Hélio Oiticica, was intended to utilize colors in a new way while also exploring the spatial relationships that colors have. The piece is characterized by a sort of grid pattern of blue rectangles that are all off balance giving the appearance of them floating just above the white background. The layout of the piece echoes Modernist art and artists such as  Mondrian and Malevich.

 

Bicho Pássaro do Espaço

Lygia Clark

1960

Aluminum 

Alison Jacques Gallery, London

 

Lygia Clark’s organic approach to art led her to create a series of sculptures entitled Bichos. In her career she created around seventy of these sculptures that focuses on what's underneath or the skeletal form of the sculpture. Entitled, Maquette, this aluminum sculpture is lacking a bottom or top, which creates a sense of instability that invites the viewer to play with the piece as it could be moved in any position. 

 

 

Ttéia 1

Lygia Pape

2002

Installation

Gold thread in square forms

Serpintine Gallery, London 

 

Like her contemporaries Lygia Clark and Hélio Oiticica, Lygia Pape was a firm believer in the Neo-Concrete Manifesto. The Neo-Concrete Manifesto (1959) called for a reinstatement of the values of intuition, expression and subjectivity. “If we have to look for an equivalent to the work we will not find it in the machine, or even objects as such, but… in living organisms.” This connects once again to “organic” being the key term. Lygia Pape’s early work seems to focus on form but underlying all of her life’s work there is a common element; she focuses her attention to space and the void between objects. This is apparent in the installation Ttéia I and how the strings descend. The installation itself has been shown twice, once in 2002 then later in 2011.

 

Estrela

Amilcar de Castro

1952

Copper

Galeria Marilia Razuk, São Paulo, and Luhring Augustine, New York

 

Estrela is a copper sculpture made of three rectangular, copper sheets which are folded and brought together to create a piece which holds many triangular planes. This and Castro's other works are unique in how there is no specific position that the viewer should view the piece from. Estrela holds unique forms and possibilities from whichever position it is viewed from.

Verde

Ferreira Gullar

1957-1958

Ink on paper

São Paulo: Cosac Naify 

 

Gullar's poem, Verde, is structured around only two words: Verde and Erva, which mean green and grass respectiviely. This poem incites both the senses and mental processes of the viewer by revealing a field of green accompanied by a small portion of grass, in a playful manner. This allows the viewer to play with the relationships and meanings of the words themselves, in a way that is simple, yet expansive.

Bibliography

Alvarez, Mariola V. "The Anti-Dictionary: Ferreira Gullar’s Non-Object Poems." nonsite. .9 (2013) nonsite. Web. 15 Oct. 2015. <http://nonsite.org/feature/the-anti-dictionary-ferreira-gullars-non-object-poems>

 

  • This online journal provided some history over Gullar's writing career, and it went into depth on several of his poems that he created throughout his life. The journal even goes into the theories and ideas that are behind his works. It was useful in both interpreting this poem and of finding its influence.

 

Amor, Monica. "From Work to Frame, In Between, and Beyond: Lygia Clark and Hélio Oiticica, 1959–1964." Grey Room: 20-37. Print.

 

  • This entry from MIT press was useful in analyzing Lygia Clark’s ideas behind such a piece and her inspirations behind it. Amor, the writer, recalls 5 years of Clark’s work in an essay about her life as an Avant-garde artist and major influencer of the neo-concrete movement.

 

Bois, Yve-Alain. “Nostalgia of the Body.” October. Vol. 69. JSTOR (1994) pp. 85-109. Web. 14 Oct. 2015.

 

  • This journal article provided insight on the Neo-concretist Manifesto of 1959 and exactly what net-concretism meant at that time.

 

Brett, Guy. "Lygia Clark: In Search Of The Body." [London] July 1994: 56+. Print.

 

  • This article allows Brett to introduce Clark's work to a wider audience, spreading knowledge of the artists throughout America. Clark is described as of "first importance" in the Brazilian art world with her innovative works that explore the human experience through geometric work. Viewer participation and the senses played a major role as Clark's work evolved, eventually giving way to the theme of healing. Clark's creative process creates a new way of perceiving how art works as "art work" and how the artists communicates with the viewer. Overall, Clark manifested the wish of the Neo-Concretists to reject mechanics and technology and express the natural experience of the sensual, organic human being.

 

 Dezeuze, Anna. "Minimalism and Neoconcretism." Talk delivered at the Henry Moore Institute 26 (2006). Web. 15 Oct. 2015.

 

  • This online article describes the movements of Minimalism and Neoconcretism as it tries to reveal the similarities and aspects of both. The article was useful in describing the uniqueness of Castro's sculptures in how they do not have a specific viewing position.

 

Ferreira Gullar, "Neo-Concrete Manifesto," 1959, reprinted in English, Art in Latin America: The Modern Period, London, Yale University Press, 1989, p.335

 

  • The “Neo-Concrete Manifesto” is the go to source for understanding the ideas and philosophies of the movement and it’s participants. The manifesto provides and in-depth analysis on abandonment of art at the time.

 

Happersett, Susan. ""Empty House Casa Vazia" at Luhring Augustine Chelsea." Web blog post. fibonaccisusan. WordPress, 4 Aug. 2015. Web. 15 Oct. 2015. <http://fibonaccisusan.com/2015/08/04/empty-house-casa-vazia-at-luhring-augustine-chelsea>

 

  • This blog post talks about the Luring Augustine Gallery in Chelsea that held an exhibition of Neoconcretism works. The post includes, and describes, three works from Lygia Clark, Lygia Pape, and Amilcar de Castro. This post was useful in how it describes the technical information for Castro's Estrela, and it roughly describes how it was made.

 

Harper, Eleanor R. Restoring Subjectivity and Brazilian Identity: Lygia Clark’s Therapeutic Practice. Diss. Ohio University, 2010. Web. 15 Oct. 2015. <https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=ohiou1275622355&disposition=inline>

 

  • This dissertation was focused upon Lygia Clark's works and practices as it goes into depth for each, describing the ideas and theories that go into her works, while describing her life as an artist. This thesis was useful for information on Gullar as it builds upon his writing and it describes his "Theory of the Non-Object."

 

"Hélio Oiticica, 'Spatial Relief (red) REL 036' 1959." Tate. Tate, n.d. Web. 15 Oct. 2015.

 

  • This source is from the Tate Galleries which is a family of four art galleries in London, Liverpool, and Cornwall England. They are known as Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Tate Liverppol, and Tate St Ives. This site gives a brief rundown of the Neo-Concrete manifesto and how it was formed in reaction to the Concrete movement because the artists were unhappy with the dogmatic approach to the Concrete movement.

 

Jiménez, Maya. "Khan Academy." Khan Academy. Khan Academy, n.d. Web. 14 Oct. 2015. <https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/global-culture/identity-body/identity-body-europe/a/lygia-clark-bicho>.

 

  • In this article written by Maya Jiménez, she goes into how artists like Helio Oiticica and Lygia Clark were very interested in the Neo-Concrete Manifesto. Clark took her own interpretations and began to do more organic geometric abstractions. The author goes on to state that in response she starts to create Bichos, which were an exoskeletal form of a sculpture that celebrates what’s underneath. They were created to be participated with by her viewers that were supposed to move the objects.

 

Lygia Clark, Bicho Pássaro do Espaço (Maquette), 1960, aluminum 

 

  • Lygia Clark’s organic approach to art led her to create a series of sculptures entitled Bichos. In her career she created around seventy of these sculptures that focuses on what's underneath or the skeletal form of the sculpture. Entitled, Maquette, this aluminum sculpture is lacking a bottom or top, which creates a sense of instability that invites the viewer to play with the piece as it could be moved in any position. 

 

"MoMA." Hélio Oiticica. Neoconcrete Relief. 1960. The Museum of Modern Art, n.d. Web. 15 Oct. 2015.

 

  • This source is from the Museum of Modern art located in New York City. Also known as the “MoMA” this museum was founded in 1929 as an educational institution dedicated to modern art. This source goes into vivid detail about the point of this piece of art, even quoting directing from the artitst about how the wall actually serves as an extraneous, unlimited space, though necessary to the vision of the work, and not as a background.

 

Nist, John. “Brazilian Concretism.” Hispania. Vol. 47, No. 4. JSTOR (1964) pp. 711-715. Web. 14 Oct. 2015.

 

  • This article was only helpful in viewing the Neo-concretist movement from the standpoint of Brazilian art in the mid 1900’s.

 

Rodriguez, Renato. "Hélio Oiticica’s Parangolé or the Art of Transgression." Third Text 19.3 (2005): 213-31. Print.

 

  • Rodriguez uses this article to comment on Oiticica's Parangolé exhibition from the 1960's. The article takes into account previous research done on the exhibition, particularly by scholar Guy Brett, and furthers the discussion on Oiticica's own research for the project, the relation of the exhibition to Brazilian art and culture, and interpretations of the art concerning the human body. The relationship between Oiticica and Lygia Clark is examined in further sections of the article, giving insight on the experimental quality of the Neo-Concrete movement. According to Rodriguez, this relationship helped transform the work of Oiticica as well as other Neo-Concrete artists that were known to work with the movement. 

 

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