Edited by Cornelia Butler, Luis Pérez-Oramas. Text by Sergio Bessa, Eleonora Fabião, Briony Fer, Geaninne Gutiérrez-Guimarães, André Lepecki, Zeuler Lima, Christine Macel, Frederico de Oliveira Coelho.
From Concrete art to relational objects: the artistic paths of Lygia Clark
Published in conjunction with a major retrospective of the work of Brazilian painter, sculptor and performance artist Lygia Clark, this publication presents a linear and progressive survey of the artist’s groundbreaking practice. Having trained with modern masters from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s, Clark was at the forefront of Constructivist and Neo-Concretist movements in Brazil and fostered the active participation of the spectator through her works. Examining Clark’s output from her early abstract compositions to the "biological architectures" and "relational objects" she created late in her career, this is the most comprehensive volume on the artist available in English. Three sections based on key phases throughout her career--Abstraction, Neo-Concretism and The Abandonment of Art--examine these critical moments in Clark’s production, anchor significant concepts or constellations of works that mark a definitive step in her work, and shed light on circumstances in her life as an artist. Featuring a significant selection of previously unpublished archival texts of Clark’s personal writings, it is a vital source of primary documentation for twentieth-century art history scholarship.
Lygia Clark (1920–1988) trained in Rio de Janeiro and Paris from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s. From the late 1960s through the 1970s she created a series of unconventional artworks in parallel to a lengthy psychoanalytic therapy, leading her to develop a series of therapeutic propositions grounded in art. Clark has become a major reference for contemporary artists dealing with the limits of conventional forms of art.
Cornelia Butler is Chief Curator at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles.
Luis Perez-Oramas is the Estrellita Brodsky Curator of Latin American Art for the Department of Drawings and Prints at The Museum of Modern Art.
Sergio Bessa is the director of curatorial and education programs at the Bronx Museum, and a teacher of Museum Education at Columbia University.
Eleonora Fabiao is a performer/performance theorist and Associate Professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.
Briony Fer is a British art historian, curator and Professor of History of Art at University College London.
Geaninne Gutiérrez-Guimarães has curated for the Museum of Modern Art and the Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Art Gallery.
Andre Lepecki is Associate Professor at the Department of Performance Studies at Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. He is a writer and curator working mainly on performance studies, choreography and dramaturgy.
Zeuler Lima is an architect and associate professor of history, theory and design at the School of Design and Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis.
"Óculos" (1968) is reproduced from Lygia Clark: The Abandonment of Art.
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Artforum
Daniel Quiles
Now regarded as one of the postwar era's most important artists, Lygia Clark produced a generative body of abstract painting in the 1950s, reinvented sculpture with her participatory objects of the '60s, and later devised an altogether unique mode of ritualistic, collective quasi therapy.
The New Yorker
...a big, openhearted retrospective of the great Brazilian artist who made the arduous look effortless.
Bookforum
Lauren O'Neill-Butler
As Lygia Clark's current MoMA retrospective finally brings her career more fully into view, so, too, arrive overdue scholarship, insights, and revelations about her work. Devotees of the Brazilian artist already know that previous monographs were scant and expansive, and that much of the key criticism about her, as well as her own prose, hadn't been translated from Portuguese. Offering a strong corrective, this catalogue strives to be definitive, with essays by ten authors alongside nearly three hundred spaciously arranged images of Clark's boundary-breaking art.
Time Out New York
Howard Halle
During the 1960s and 70s, the Brazilian art scene was a hotbed of radical innovation, thanks to the Neo- Concretist movement, of which Lygia Clark(1920-1988) was a leading figure. This retrospective represents the first for the artist in North America, and surveys everything from her efforts in painting and sculpture to her move into Conceptualism.
Time Out New York
Howard Halle
During the 1960s and 70s, the Brazilian art scene was a hotbed of radical innovation, thanks to the Neo- Concretist movement, of which Lygia Clark(1920-1988) was a leading figure. This retrospective represents the first for the artist in North America, and surveys everything from her efforts in painting and sculpture to her move into Conceptualism.
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In 1963, Brazilian artist Lygia Clark wrote, "I am a totality… I already exist before the after. The after is what anticipates the act. The after is the moment of the transcendent immanent [act]. To feel a deep identification with the times, therefore to obtain the identification with the collective, it is necessary to walk with the work." Featured image, of the artwork "Caminhando," also produced in 1963, is reproduced from Lygia Clark: The Abandonment of Art, the excellent and truly substantial catalog to the major retrospective opening at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, May 10. continue to blog
In 1960, Brazilian artist Lygia Clark wrote, "For me art is only valid in the ethico-religious sense, internally connected to the inner elaboration of the artist in its deepest sense, which is the existential. My whole vision is not purely optical, but is profoundly connected to my experience of feeling, not only in the immediate sense, but even more, in the deeper sense in which one doesn't know what is its origin. That which a form may express only has a meaning for me in a strict relationship with its inner space, the empty-full of its existence, just as there exists our space which goes on being completed and taking on meaning as maturity arrives. At times I think that before we are born we are like a closed fist which opens its first finger when we are born and is opened internally like the petals of a flower as we discover the meaning of our existence, for us at a certain moment to become aware of this plenitude of an empty-full (interior time)." Featured image, of Clark's proposition, "Diálogo de mãos (Dialogue of the Hands)" (1966), is reproduced from Lygia Clark: The Abandonment of Art, the excellent catalog to the major retrospective on view at The Museum of Modern Art, New York May 10 - August 24. continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 9.5 x 12 in. / 336 pgs / 400 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $75.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $99 ISBN: 9780870708909 PUBLISHER: The Museum of Modern Art, New York AVAILABLE: 10/31/2014 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: NA ONLY
Published by The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Edited by Cornelia Butler, Luis Pérez-Oramas. Text by Sergio Bessa, Eleonora Fabião, Briony Fer, Geaninne Gutiérrez-Guimarães, André Lepecki, Zeuler Lima, Christine Macel, Frederico de Oliveira Coelho.
From Concrete art to relational objects: the artistic paths of Lygia Clark
Published in conjunction with a major retrospective of the work of Brazilian painter, sculptor and performance artist Lygia Clark, this publication presents a linear and progressive survey of the artist’s groundbreaking practice. Having trained with modern masters from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s, Clark was at the forefront of Constructivist and Neo-Concretist movements in Brazil and fostered the active participation of the spectator through her works. Examining Clark’s output from her early abstract compositions to the "biological architectures" and "relational objects" she created late in her career, this is the most comprehensive volume on the artist available in English. Three sections based on key phases throughout her career--Abstraction, Neo-Concretism and The Abandonment of Art--examine these critical moments in Clark’s production, anchor significant concepts or constellations of works that mark a definitive step in her work, and shed light on circumstances in her life as an artist. Featuring a significant selection of previously unpublished archival texts of Clark’s personal writings, it is a vital source of primary documentation for twentieth-century art history scholarship.
Lygia Clark (1920–1988) trained in Rio de Janeiro and Paris from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s. From the late 1960s through the 1970s she created a series of unconventional artworks in parallel to a lengthy psychoanalytic therapy, leading her to develop a series of therapeutic propositions grounded in art. Clark has become a major reference for contemporary artists dealing with the limits of conventional forms of art.
Cornelia Butler is Chief Curator at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles.
Luis Perez-Oramas is the Estrellita Brodsky Curator of Latin American Art for the Department of Drawings and Prints at The Museum of Modern Art.
Sergio Bessa is the director of curatorial and education programs at the Bronx Museum, and a teacher of Museum Education at Columbia University.
Eleonora Fabiao is a performer/performance theorist and Associate Professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.
Briony Fer is a British art historian, curator and Professor of History of Art at University College London.
Geaninne Gutiérrez-Guimarães has curated for the Museum of Modern Art and the Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Art Gallery.
Andre Lepecki is Associate Professor at the Department of Performance Studies at Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. He is a writer and curator working mainly on performance studies, choreography and dramaturgy.
Zeuler Lima is an architect and associate professor of history, theory and design at the School of Design and Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis.
