Lygia Pape, the artist curating the Projeto Construtivo Brasileiro exhibition (in the version shown in Rio de Janeiro), analyzes the legacy of the constructive art movements in Brazil retrospectively, and based on these, assesses Brazilian art on a global scale. Pape examines the role and contributions of Brazilian (and international) constructivism, making it clear that Brazilian constructive art was not the result of simple assimilation, but was rather the product of a clash of cultures; she concludes that it is possible to establish connections between constructive art and post-modernity.

The Projeto Construtivo Brasileiro na Arte show was organized in São Paulo by Aracy Amaral (b. 1930) and by Lygia Pape (1927–2004) (in the version shown in Rio de Janeiro). It had a great impact in Brazil, and it led to a new reading of the meaning of the rationalist movements in the nation’s art. In 1977, the show was presented at the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, and later at the MAM-RJ (Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro). Pape’s essay (in an expanded and revised version) was later included in the book Neoconcretismo (1975) by Ronaldo Brito. The Projecto Construtivo Brasiliero undoubtedly represents an encounter between concrete art and neo-concrete art, in addition for the debates it sparked.

The production of artist Lygia Pape ably encompassed various genres: sculpture, engraving (Livro-poema, 1960), dance (Ballet neoconcreto, 1960), and film (O guarda-chuva vermelho [Red Umbrella, 1971]. She began her art studies with Ivan Serpa in the Grupo Frente in Rio de Janeiro (1955). She participated in the neo-concrete art movement from the publication of its manifesto in the Jornal do Brasil (March 1959), and she went on to become an emblematic figure through her radical proposals during the 1960s—she produced videos and installations that satirized the military dictatorship (1965–85)—and decades later. These metaphors became more subtle during the 1980s—a decade in which she took a somatic approach—when her work became a vehicle for dynamic corporal experiences within the existential, sensorial, and psychological realms. In all these cases, geometry (derived from the concrete influence) was key in her later works; at the same time, her proposals ran the gamut from a highly intellectual focus to the physical participation of an active-viewer. Her most notable works include Tecelares [Weavings] and her trilogy Livro da criação/Livro do tempo/Livro da arquitetura [Book of Creation/Book of Time/Book of Architecture] (1959, all) and later, TtEias [Webs, 1979].

[See the text on the artist by Mário Pedrosa in the ICAA digital archive: “Lygia Pape” (doc. no. 1111071)].