Lygia Clark: The I and the You

2 Oct 2024-12 Jan 2025

Overview

The I and the You marks the first major UK public gallery survey of the pioneering and influential Brazilian artist, Lygia Clark (1920 – 1988, Brazil).  

The exhibition focuses on Clark’s artistic journey from the mid-1950s to early 1970s, a particularly volatile period in Brazil’s history in which radical modes of artistic practice also emerged. Clark was a central figure in the Brazilian Neo-concrete movement (1959 – 1961), which also included artists such as Amilcar de Castro, Ferreira Gullar, Hélio Oiticica and Lygia Pape.  Frustrated by what they felt to be the limitations of ‘Concrete art’, with its emphasis on non-figurative geometric abstraction, Neo-concrete artists began to push for greater experimentation, expression, colour and poetic sensibility in their practices – as well as proposing a shift in how audiences might participate in artworks.  

Encompassing paintings, works on paper, a selection of Clark’s renowned ‘Bichos’, as well as other groundbreaking participatory works, The I and the You shows how Clark’s early formal experimentations and growing interest in the philosophy of experience and therapeutic potential of art led to a gradual closure of the gap between the work and the viewer.   

An integrated programme of public talks, walks, and other participatory events will further contextualise Lygia Clark’s work and practice. 

Lygia Clark: The I and the You is presented in dialogue with Sonia Boyce: An Awkward Relation (Galleries 8 & 9).

Artists