Lygia Pape at Serpentine Gallery

Lygia Pape
Magnetized Space
December 7, 2011 – February 19, 2012

The thread of Magnetized Space is the poem and book. The viewer’s participation in the work is a key element.
One of the main characteristics of the Neo Concrete movement is the sensitivity, expressiveness and subjectivity in the artwork. The subjectivity and experience of contact with the work by the viewer is a constant, and this interaction gives the work its sublime transformative sense.
Neo Concretism was most notably lead by Lygia Pape, Lygia Clark and Hélio Oiticica, who idealized a new aesthetic thought that emerged in Brazil in the 50s. This attitude towards life saw art as a form of expression and incorporating viewers in the work becomes the fundamental element in their aesthetics. It came as a rupture to the Constructivist canon – the rigidity of the forms, of thought, which had its best example in Brasília conception and construction, in Brazil’s interior.
Pape’s poetic works transcends their semantic condition when transmitted to the body and subject. The Tteias are the ultimate expression of poetic space by the artist, where light becomes immaterial, intangible – Pape’s latest work captures emotions and sensations.
This is Lygia Pape’s (1927-2004) first major exhibition in the UK and brings together well-known and previously unseen works, spanning a multiplicity of mediums.
The exhibition is organised by the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in collaboration with Projeto Lygia Pape and the Serpentine Gallery.

Photo: Lygia Pape, Roda dos Prazeres (Wheels of Pleasure), 2011. Installation view. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, 2011 © Projeto Lygia Pape and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía