IMMA presents a major exhibition of the work of the internationally renowned Brazilian artist Hélio Oiticica (1937–1980). Propositions will include a succinct selection of works by Oiticica, including vital examples from throughout his prolific career with a view to illuminating his art historical importance and relevance to contemporary practice.
Oiticica was as an innovator of interactive and experiential artworks whose work has influenced many of the key contemporary artists working today. Audiences will be encouraged to engage, explore and participate in this colourful exhibition - visitors can try on his wearable ‘Parangolés’ and dress up as a mobile sculpture.
The exhibition highlights Oiticica as an artist whose impulse to depart from the traditional conception of the artwork, with a constant urge for renewal and experimentation, was working significantly ahead of his time. A particular focus of this exhibition is the proposals and re-enactments laid out by Oiticica. Works will be displayed which illustrate the artist’s driving conviction that colour and form should emancipate themselves from the surface into space and time, and that the integration of the viewer is intrinsic to the art experience.
The exhibition at IMMA will expand upon previous exhibitions on Oiticica by investigating notions of the script and proposals, which the artist engaged with throughout his life, and in particular in his later works. Furthermore, emphasis will be placed on the potentialities at play within Oiticica’s artworks, realms of possibility which the artist triggered through his spectator-activated installations, sculptures, paintings and wearable “Parangolés”. Recognising Oiticica as an innovator of interactive and experiential artworks whose work has influenced many of the key contemporary artists working within the field of relational aesthetics, the exhibition will examine this impulse as it reverberates throughout his oeuvre and into the public realm.
