Lygia Clark (1948-1988)
The Abandonment of Art
Lygia Clark was one of the most daring artists at the forefront of the Neo-Concretist movement in Brazil. She engages the audience in creating an interactive element between art and viewer. Her art is comprised of paintings, drawings, and sculptural works often made of metal. She then became interested in the psychotherapeutical aspect of her art, and ceased to call herself an artist and concentrated on developing art for these purposes. She had a series of psychology/sensorial/relational works that she categorized with the term “collective body.” She defined it as a single body incorporating multiple individuals. Just as she had imagined art fusing with the world through relational actions, she also imagined various bodies fused in a collectivity. Thus, Clark has become a major reference for contemporary artists dealing with the limits of conventional forms of art.
During my visit to the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), I had a chance to experience Clark’s work in person. There was definitely a strong element of interactive approach to many of her artworks, in which I was able to be a part of. Most art don’t allow for the audience to touch and feel, but in this exhibition there were many areas where the viewers were welcome to interact with the art. There were metal plate contraption throughout the space, as well as a performance of a mental exercise that involved a woman using seemingly random materials in contact with a man laying down.
A lot of her work was geometrically structured, and had a rhythm as well as coherency to the general majority of her pieces.
Sketches:
