Hélio Oiticica’s introduction to the work of Regina Vater takes the form of a visual poem; he discusses her exploration of extreme experimental situations which seek to solve the dead end question concerning “the why” of a work of art. Oiticica notes that Vater’s methods, in her photos and her use of the camera, are constantly in search of a de-codification and a demystification of the making of art. He wonders what need there is for a quantity of works, and whether “not making” might be an integral part of “making.” In her work, Vater focuses on investigating the (artistic) process, identifying it with her own program or work-in-progress, and blithely believing that the media devices she uses are superior to the (technological) multimedia that others use in mannerist ways.    

This is the catalogue for Veart, the exhibition of works by Regina Vater (b. 1943) at the Galeria de Arte Global in 1978. Vater, who is from Rio de Janeiro, presents her photographs and films in which the word “art” is spelled out using a variety of materials (ice, fire, birdseed, pieces of macaroni, powder, and so on) in order to underscore the ephemeral, fragile nature of objects and, clearly, in a metaphorical sense, art itself. She was inspired to create these works by a creative crisis brought on by frustration over the inability to create a work of art to show at the XIV Bienal de São Paulo in 1977. After spending eight years in New York, Hélio Oiticica returned to Brazil in 1978. In these notes on his poetic writing, he was developing a theory of art and the artistic process, referring in this particular case to an “in-progress” program; that is, works that involve an ongoing articulation of certain ideas that are more process than object.     

For more examples of Oiticica’s thoughts on Brazilian art in the late 1960s and early 1970s, see the essay “Esquema geral da nova objetividade” [doc. no. 1110372], and the article “Aparecimento do suprasensorial na arte brasileira” [doc. no. 1110620].