Lygia Clark is among the pioneering artists of South America. Her works brought the artwork and its audience into direct dialogue. Her walk-through, hands-on installations involve viewers as active participants in their creation. Her stance questioned both the institution of the museum and the idea of an artwork as a finished object, demanding a holistic experience that engages the body and the senses. Her practice reflected both the mood of change in Brazil and the scars of political oppression – but has lost none of its relevance today.
As a key figure of Neoconcretismo, Lygia Clark searched from the 1960s onward for a new artistic experience. Her development led from the painted image to spatial exploration and finally to abandoning the fixed object in the 1970s. One of her best-known works is the series ‘Caminhando’ (Walking) from 1963, seen here in the cover image. Inspired by the engagement of the Swiss polymath Max Bill with the Möbius strip, Clark devised an instruction in which not the object but the action itself becomes the artwork. 'Caminhando' thus marked a revolutionary break: the focus shifted entirely to a process.