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Neoconcrete Experience
Neoconcrete Experience | 11 Dec 2009 – 30 Jan 2010
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Neoconcrete art movement, this exhibition focused on the principle platform for the dissemination of Neoconcrete concepts and critique between the late 1950s and the early 1960s: the Sunday supplement of the Jornal do Brasil newspaper. The exhibition highlighted how not only the content put also the layout of the supplement were radically changed by the contributions from avant-garde artists, poets, designers and art critics.
Although increasingly referred to at an international level, particularly through the recognition of artists such as Hélio Oiticica, Lygia Clark and Lygia Pape, the Neoconcrete movement itself still remains relatively unknown and often misunderstood. This exhibition was therefore timely as it unveiled a central driving force in the contemporaneous local dissemination and the depth and breadth of the discourse generated by the Neoconcrete group.
In addition to the renowned ‘Manifesto Neoconcreto’ (March 1959) and the ‘Theory of the Non-Object’ (December 1959), research undertaken in the archives of the Jornal do Brasil has uncovered other, lesser-known articles and reviews, reproductions of which were on display for the first time in Britain. While the exhibition focused on the graphic re-structuring of the newspaper following the Neoconcrete intervention, a facsimile has been produced offering English translations of a selection of pages containing reviews and critical comments on the activities of the movement, such as the I Exposição de Arte Neoconcreta (1st Neoconcrete Art Exhibition) which included artists Lygia Clark, Lygia Pape, Amilcar de Castro, Franz Weissmann, Reynaldo Jardim, Theon Spanudis and Ferreira Gullar, all signatories of the Manifesto.
The exhibition also included a documentary by Katia Maciel in which artists recalled the ‘Neoconcrete Experience’ and further contextualise the significance and the controversial nature of the movement.
Visit the Gallery 32 website for more details.
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Monday 30 January, 2012
