POSSIBILITIES OF THE
OBJECT
Experiments in Modern and Contemporary Brazilian Art
curated by Paulo Venancio Filho
The Fruitmarket Gallery
45 Market Street - Edinburgh
6 March – 25 May 2015
Artur Barrio, Waltércio Caldas, Sergio Camargo, Aluísio Carvão, Amílcar de Castro, Willys de Castro, Lygia Clark, Antonio Dias, Fernanda Gomes, Jac Leirner, Antonio Manuel, Cildo Meireles, Ernesto Neto, Hélio Oiticica, Lygia Pape, Mira Schendel, Tunga and Carlos Zilio
The Fruitmarket Gallery presents a group exhibition that examines the transitions that have occurred within the sphere of the object in Brazilian art since the 1950s, and the importance of these transitions in the establishment of the hugely influential experimental tradition in Brazilian contemporary art.
“Active-object,” “relational object,” “trans-object,” “non-object,” “poem object,” “graphic object” are some of the new categories invented as artists struggled to come to terms with the conceptual expansion and redefinition of the object. Connecting the work of well-known Brazilian artists such as Hélio Oiticica, Lygia Clark and Mira Schendel, with the work of their lesser-known contemporaries and the younger generation of artists that followed, the exhibition is a celebration of some of the beautiful and artistically radical sculptures with which Brazilian artists have tried to redefine what an art object can actually be.
From the more abstract, phenomenological objects of the neoconcrete artists of the 1950s, including Sergio Camargo’s Cubo aberto (Open Cube), 1958–59, through to the conceptual works of the avant-gardes of the 1960s and ’70s, including examples of Hélio Oiticica’s Bolides and Lygia Clark’s Bichos, and into the 1980s and to the present day with works including Fernanda Gomes’s untitled sculptural constructions and small objects by Ernesto Neto, this exhibition traces a coherent sequence of artistic experimentation in the realm of the object, investigating this period of great artistic and historic importance, and its influence on contemporary art today.
A catalogue of the same title Possibilities of the Object: Experiments in Modern and Contemporary Brazilian Art, written by Paulo Venancio Filho with a forward by Briony Fer, is available online.
Image: Hélio Oiticica, Relevo Espacial (Vermêlho) (Spatial Relief [red] REL 036), 1959. © Tate, London, 2014.
Experiments in Modern and Contemporary Brazilian Art
curated by Paulo Venancio Filho
The Fruitmarket Gallery
45 Market Street - Edinburgh
6 March – 25 May 2015
Artur Barrio, Waltércio Caldas, Sergio Camargo, Aluísio Carvão, Amílcar de Castro, Willys de Castro, Lygia Clark, Antonio Dias, Fernanda Gomes, Jac Leirner, Antonio Manuel, Cildo Meireles, Ernesto Neto, Hélio Oiticica, Lygia Pape, Mira Schendel, Tunga and Carlos Zilio
The Fruitmarket Gallery presents a group exhibition that examines the transitions that have occurred within the sphere of the object in Brazilian art since the 1950s, and the importance of these transitions in the establishment of the hugely influential experimental tradition in Brazilian contemporary art.
“Active-object,” “relational object,” “trans-object,” “non-object,” “poem object,” “graphic object” are some of the new categories invented as artists struggled to come to terms with the conceptual expansion and redefinition of the object. Connecting the work of well-known Brazilian artists such as Hélio Oiticica, Lygia Clark and Mira Schendel, with the work of their lesser-known contemporaries and the younger generation of artists that followed, the exhibition is a celebration of some of the beautiful and artistically radical sculptures with which Brazilian artists have tried to redefine what an art object can actually be.
From the more abstract, phenomenological objects of the neoconcrete artists of the 1950s, including Sergio Camargo’s Cubo aberto (Open Cube), 1958–59, through to the conceptual works of the avant-gardes of the 1960s and ’70s, including examples of Hélio Oiticica’s Bolides and Lygia Clark’s Bichos, and into the 1980s and to the present day with works including Fernanda Gomes’s untitled sculptural constructions and small objects by Ernesto Neto, this exhibition traces a coherent sequence of artistic experimentation in the realm of the object, investigating this period of great artistic and historic importance, and its influence on contemporary art today.
A catalogue of the same title Possibilities of the Object: Experiments in Modern and Contemporary Brazilian Art, written by Paulo Venancio Filho with a forward by Briony Fer, is available online.
Image: Hélio Oiticica, Relevo Espacial (Vermêlho) (Spatial Relief [red] REL 036), 1959. © Tate, London, 2014.
