LYGIA PAPE

Magnetized Space

7 Decmbre , 2011 - 19 Fbruary, 2012 

Lygia Pape (1927-2004) was a leading Brazilian artist whose work brought together formal rigour and daring experimentation. In her own words, she explained her approach: 'My concern is always invention. I always want to invent a new laqnguage that's different for me and for others, too... I want to discover new things. Because, to me, art is a way of knowing the world... to see how the world is... of getting to know the wolrd'.

Pape was a founding member of the Neo-Concrete movement, wich was dedicated to the inclusion of art into everyday life. Pape's early work developed out of an interest in European abstraction, however she and her contemporaries went beyond simply adopting an international style, and started to draw ontheir own local situation.

Neo-concretism is often seens as the beginning of contemporary art in Brazil, and Pape's work - which focused artistic identity.

The exhibition presents work from throughout Pape's career, including drawings and poems from her Concrete peiod to her Neo-Concretist Livros (Books) and Caixas (Boxes) series, as well as ballets and perfomances such as Divisor (Divder) and O ovo (The Egg). Many of the these works were created in response to the political repression growing in the late 1960s and reflected the artist's strongly critical views on Brazil's elite. Pape's late works focused on the description on the depivtion of the emotion and sensation, and havve been decribed by Hélio oiticica - a contemporary of Pape's - as 'permanently open seeds'

The exhibition is organised by the Museo nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in collaboration with àprojecto Lygia Pape and the Serpentine Gallery.

www.serpentinegallery.org

Abdelhak Tamar