![]() ![]() Unfortunately, although the original works, including the Bólides, were intended to be handled, the visitors cannot touch them because of their fragility. Nylon mesh fabric and plastic vinyl, 38 ½ x 33 in. Hélio Oiticica, P31 Parangolé Cape 24, Escrerbuto (P31 Parangolé Capa 24, Escrerbuto) worn by Omar Salomão, 1972. It was important for the artist to connect the viewer and the work on the level of spatial and physical interaction. In his Spatial Reliefs, Nuclei and Penetrables, made during the early-60s, he strove to liberate the abstract coloured shapes from the wall and from adherence to a particular form by making them part of the viewer’s environment. His quest in abstraction and objectification of this abstraction was all his own, however. He soon began expanding his art into 3D, following the logic of engaging the viewer with the work, in a similar way to that of artists in Russia half a century before him. ![]() His Metaesquemas, for example, done in the mid- and late-50s, are experiments in shattering the regularity of geometric forms by their displacements along various axes, including diagonal ones, reminiscent of Baroque visual principles, as in Metaesquema 362 and Metaesquema 4066 from 1958. The early works demonstrate Oiticica’s efforts to find his own expressive language by integrating the playfulness of Klee’s figurative dreamscapes and the strict geometricity of Malevich and Mondrian. The first section of the exhibition features these early experiments, conducted in the mid- and late-50s, while Oiticica was a member of Grupo Frente (The Forward Group), which was led by his teacher, the painter Ivan Serpa, and included such artists as Lygia Clark and Lygia Pape. He began his artistic explorations with visual experimentation inspired by the work of pioneers of geometric abstraction, such as Kazimir Malevich and Piet Mondrian, as well as by the playful and whimsical figuration of Paul Klee. At the beginning of his artistic career, during the 1950s, Oiticica embraced the hopeful spirit of Brazil, a developing country that was striving towards integration into the world economy. The exhibition shows us that this aesthetic of containment took several years to develop. The goal of this containment is not to control, but rather to open up to the basic joys of life. The title of the exhibition fits well: from his earliest object on display, Hunting Dogs Project (1961), a model for a public garden in the form of a maze, to PN27 Penetrable, made in 1979, a year before his death, there is a definite drive in the artist’s work to contain a boundless and unpredictable human body, including the collective body – with all its joyful and painful emotions – within a certain aesthetic frame. Hélio Oiticica in front of a poster for Neil Simon’s play The Prisoner of Second Avenue, in Midtown Manhattan, 1972. ![]() Visitors are invited to observe airborne and earthbound geometric constructions saturated in bright colours examine his Bólides (Fireballs), interactive composite objects filled with sand and other substances, which were intended to be handled by viewers dance samba in one of his Parangolés, capes designed by the artist to be worn by the public play billiard on a pool table that is supposed to send you back to the atmosphere of Vincent Van Gogh’s painting The Night Cafe and experience immersive exotic or unfamiliar environments, as in his installations Tropicália (1967) and Eden (1969). More than half-a-century after its creation, his work impresses by the daring and breadth of its vision. The exhibition presents him as having incorporated the influence of modern and contemporary western artists into his work, all the while remaining firmly connected to his national and cultural roots. Oiticica, who entered Brazil’s art scene in the late-1950s and the early 60s, became one of the most visible representatives of the country’s postwar avant garde. The retrospective of the work of Hélio Oiticica (1937-80) at the Whitney Museum offers a special experience, memorable for its sensuous resonance. The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York Hélio Oiticica: To Organize Delirium This inspiring retrospective at the Whitney captures the sensuous resonance of Brazilian artist Hélio Oiticica’s work, allowing visitors to immerse themselves in the life-affirming spirit of his oeuvre ![]()
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