I just read in Artforum that an estimated 2,000 works by the inestimable Brazilian artist Helio Oiticica (1937-80) went up in flames. This is really so sad… Oiticica was primarily preoccupied with color who’s work as a Brazilian Modernism often articulated a provocative response to formalism. His commentary on universal form was shaped through 3-dimensional paintings, intended to be seen from the inside out by the observer.
I love, in particular, his Parangoles which he made and performed from 1964 – 79. In these works, the canvas came off the wall and the stretchers completely and the observer inhabited the ‘painting’ which was intended to be danced to the rhythm of the samba. He was an active participant with a samba school in Mangueira, one of the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Lygia Clark, another Informale artist of the time and seen in this image, and pop music stars danced the parangoles alongside anonymous citizens in a radical demonstration of populism: a brave political posture.
In 2007, The Tate had a retrospective of Oiticica’s work. This is an installation shot of the Parangoles as they hung in the gallery. Equally elegant on the wall, the works still suggested the movement that was part and parcel of their construction.
This is a real loss…
Fire Destroys Nearly 2,000 Hélio Oiticica Works
10.19.09
O Globo’s Eduardo Fradkin reports that nearly two thousand works by Brazilian artist Hélio Oiticica (1937–1980) were destroyed Friday in a fire at the house of his brother, César Oiticica, in Rio de Janeiro. Hélio Oiticica’s brothers were responsible for the artist’s estate, the Projecto Helio Oiticica; César Oiticica estimates that 90 percent of the collection was lost. The works were being temporarily housed at César Oiticica’s home because of a dispute between the Oiticica family and the Centro Municipal de Arte Hélio Oiticica over unpaid fees for the lending of the works to a retrospective that opened in April 2009.
In 2007, Tate Modern and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston staged major exhibitions of Oiticica’s work. The fire also destroyed all the pictures and film negatives in the house made by José Oiticica, Helio and César’s father and an important Brazilian photographer.
