#revision - NEOCONCRETISM

Neo-conrete art in Brazil during the 1950's and 60's was reassurance of the fact that the re-shaping of art was not just a European and American movement, but also a global one. Concrete art was influences by the constructivists of Russia, and neo-concrete was a strain of the same movement that focused on putting more colour and sensuality into the movement. I am going to focus on the relationship that neo-concretist's formed with the body through their art, particularly looking at the work of Lygia Clark and Helio Oticica.

The manifesto for neo-concretism featured the names of influential artists such as Mondrian and Malevich and their focus on reduction and geometry, and the artists in Brazil used these as influences in their movement, but aimed to do so in a way that was sensual and engaged with the body, but still had purity in non-representation forms. Both Clark and Oticica started their neo-concrete careers creating geometric and monochromic forms, with Clark's being on a match box scale and Oticica's being larger. Both could be moved and engaged with and both honoured the constructivist ideals of geometric purity. Out of these objects, Clark and Oticica developed individual styles that involved viewer participation.

Clark turned to psychotherapy in 1975 and was interested in the mind, and her works speaks volumes for this interest. Her 'creatures', which were geometric sculptures that could be moved in a way that was similar to an organic being, necessitated viewers as being vital for their existence. Guy Brett writes of these objects as only being meaningful when they are in participation with a viewer, and that each meaning and understanding of the object is assigned through a personal and intimate experience with the object. This type of 'intimacy' is also seen in Air and Stone from 1966, where cheap materials such as a plastic bag filled with air and a stone are utilised, and the bag is gently pushed and let go of so that the stone rises and falls, synonymous with the breathing pattern of a human and used in a therapeutic way. Clark's deliberate use of cheap and attainable materials come out of her desire to create work that 'anyone with my [Clark's] roots can make'. For her, the constructivist tendencies of creating a social art have not died.

Oticica also created works that demand a viewers engagement to be validated and understood, and did so by creating his Paragoles which were colourful creations made of material that were created to be worn. Ideally they were to be worn when dancing to the samba, creating a sensual explosion of colour and unifying a group of people.

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