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Hélio Oiticica: HO in Motion

Shanghai, 2 September – 30 October 2021

Hélio Oiticica: HO in Motion

Lisson Gallery is delighted to present the inaugural exhibition of work by Brazilian artist, Hélio Oiticica, in China. One of the most original artists of the twentieth century, Oiticica had a marked influence on all aspects of Brazilian avant-garde culture, and his performative, participatory work served as a touchstone for much contemporary art made since the 1960s. The exhibition serves as an introduction to the artist’s practice by presenting pivotal works from throughout his career, including a series of Metaesquema paintings (1957-1958), a Spatial Relief from 1960 that has featured in many of the significant institutional exhibitions on his work, and an experimental video work. This selection captures the complex and multi-dimensional evolution of Oiticica’s oeuvre, and introduces the activist, exuberant works that reflect the culture and society he was embedded in. A cosmopolitan traveler – moving from Brazil to London and New York before returning to Rio de Janeiro – Oiticica’s ideas continue to expand globally and unfold new meanings for the world, now reaching Asia in a major way for the first time.

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Works on view

Hélio Oiticica and Ivan Cardoso
Helioframes, 1979
Paint on 35 mm film, digitized into HD
ed. 1 of 5 + 2 APs
 

Hélio Oiticica: Expanding  |  Roberto Conduru

Between 1954 and 1980, Hélio Oiticica constituted a body of work that continues to challenge boundaries. In tune with the emancipatory impulses of modernity after World War II, his innovative work broadened the understanding and practice of art, helping to engender the contemporary era. Faced with the crises and setbacks of the period, he continued committing himself to the liberation of ways of thinking, feeling and acting.

Avoiding the dispute between figurative and abstract representation still existing in Brazil in the early 1950s, and critically adhering to Concretism, he believed in art as a poetic invention with which to intervene in the world from the start. He continually sought to disentangle himself and his work from restrictive structures, whether the traditional categories of art—drawing, painting, sculpture, architecture—or art as a circumscribed, impermeable, pure sociocultural field.

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Installation views

Hélio Oiticica: HO in Motion artwork
Hélio Oiticica: HO in Motion artwork
Hélio Oiticica: HO in Motion artwork
Hélio Oiticica: HO in Motion artwork
Hélio Oiticica: HO in Motion artwork
Hélio Oiticica: HO in Motion artwork

More information

Location

2/F, 27 Huqiu Road
Shanghai

Opening Times:
Tuesday – Saturday: 11:00am – 6:00pm

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