Acquired directly from the artist's estate; Private Collection, USA; Private Collection, Europe
Hélio Oiticica: Barcelona, Fundació Antoni Tàpies, 1–6 October 1992; Paris, Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, 8 June–23 August 1992; Rotterdam, Witte de With, Center for Contemporary Art, 22 February–26 April 1992; Lisbon, Centro de Arte Moderna da Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 20 January–20 March 1993; Minneapolis, Walker Art Center, 31 October 1993–20 February 1994
Brazilian • 1937 - 1980
Hélio Oiticica is one of Brazil's most influential artists. His work ranges from abstract compositions to early environmental installations exploring color, form, and material. He studied under Ivan Serpa in the mid-1950s and joined Grupo Frente, an association of artists in Rio de Janeiro interested in developing the legacy of European Constructivism within the context of the modernization of Brazil. Disagreements with the São Paulo Ruptura group led Oiticica and Lygia Clark to create the Neo-Concrete group (1959-'61).
His Metaesquemas (1957-'58) are an important series of gouaches where color is reduced to a few tones and broken into irregular shapes that are isolated within a grid. However he soon rejected this conventional art form for more radical ones that demanded viewer participation, including his Parangoles (1964–'68), three-dimensional sculptures based on traditional Brazilian Carnival costumes. Yet an exploration of the physical nature of color remained a constant in his work up until his untimely death in 1980.
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