Neo-Concrete Art

About

Geometric Concrete art took hold in Brazil in the early 1950s, spurred by Max Bill's prize at the first São Paulo Biennial in 1951. São Paulo artists pursued a rigorous, rational version; painters in Rio grew restless. In March 1959 the poet and critic Ferreira Gullar drafted a manifesto, signed by Lygia Clark, Amilcar de Castro, Franz Weissmann and others, insisting that art is a lived, expressive experience rather than an exercise in mathematics.

The work that followed asked to be touched and moved. Clark's Bichos (Creatures), begun in 1960, are hinged metal sculptures that viewers fold into new shapes. Hélio Oiticica lifted colour off the wall into hanging panels and walk-in spaces, and later made Parangolés, capes to be worn while dancing. Lygia Pape told the story of the world in folded, coloured card forms. The group broke up in the early 1960s, but its ideas travelled far.