Tickets available
2 Oct 2024 - 12 Jan 2025
| Monday | Closed |
| Tuesday | 11am–6pm |
| Wednesday | 11am–6pm |
| Thursday | 11am–9pm |
| Friday | 11am–6pm |
| Saturday | 11am–6pm |
| Sunday | 11am–6pm |
Whitechapel Gallery is committed to making all of our exhibitions as accessible as possible for every visitor. Please contact access@whitechapelgallery.org if you would like to discuss a particular request and we will gladly discuss with you the best way to accommodate it.
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★★★★ ‘excellently unmuseumlike’– The Guardian
The I and the You marks the first major UK public gallery survey of the pioneering and influential Brazilian artist, Lygia Clark (1920 – 1988, Brazil).
The exhibition focuses on Clark’s artistic journey from the mid-1950s to early 1970s, a particularly volatile period in Brazil’s history in which radical modes of artistic practice also emerged. Clark was a central figure in the Brazilian Neo-concrete movement (1959 – 1961), which also included artists such as Amilcar de Castro, Ferreira Gullar, Hélio Oiticica and Lygia Pape. Frustrated by what they felt to be the limitations of ‘Concrete art’, with its emphasis on non-figurative geometric abstraction, Neo-concrete artists began to push for greater experimentation, expression, colour and poetic sensibility in their practices – as well as proposing a shift in how audiences might participate in artworks.
Encompassing paintings, works on paper, a selection of Clark’s renowned ‘Bichos’, as well as other groundbreaking participatory works, The I and the You shows how Clark’s early formal experimentations and growing interest in the philosophy of experience and therapeutic potential of art led to a gradual closure of the gap between the work and the viewer.
An integrated programme of public talks, walks, and other participatory events will further contextualise Lygia Clark’s work and practice.
Lygia Clark: The I and the You is presented in dialogue with Sonia Boyce: An Awkward Relation (Galleries 8 & 9).
Read the full exhibition press release.
Artist Lygia Clark (1920 – 1988, Brazil) held a central role within the Brazilian neo-concrete avant-garde in the late-1950s. During extended trips to Europe, she participated in the burgeoning and dynamic London art scene of the 1960s, represented her country at the 1968 Venice Biennale and proposed participatory actions with students at the Sorbonne in Paris in the 1970s, before returning to Brazil in 1977. Despite having had a transnational career, it was only posthumously that her work began to receive wider international recognition following a large-scale retrospective exhibition which travelled to major European art institutions in the mid-1990s. Other international retrospectives followed including: Lygia Clark: The Abandonment of Art at MoMA in New York 2014 and most recently, Lygia Clark: Projeto para um Planeta, Pinacoteca do Estado, São Paulo, 2023.
Accompanying the exhibition Lygia Clark: The I and the You, are activations of two of Clark’s participatory works:
Elastic Net (1974) and Corpo Coletivo (1970).
These participatory works, developed during her time in Paris, explore themes of collective identity and interdependence through physical interaction. The action will unfold organically, and visitors can attend at any point during the performance slot.
Cockayne – Grants for the Arts: a donor advised fund held at The London Community FoundationHenry Moore FoundationTrAIN Research Centre at University of the Arts London The Lygia Clark Exhibition CircleWith thanks to:Alison Jacques, LondonAssociação Cultural O Mundo de Lygia ClarkEmbassy of Brazil in London/Instituto Guimarães RosaLATAM Airlines
