Helio Oiticica

Folding the Frame

Small Irene V.

Helio Oiticica (1937-1980) was one of the most brilliant Brazilian artists of the 1960s and 1970s. His unique melding of geometric abstraction with works that directly engage viewers' bodies has influenced contemporary artists from Gabriel Orozco and Cildo Meireles to Rirkrit Tiravanija and Nick Cave. This is the first book to examine Oiticica's impressive works against the backdrop of Brazil's dramatic postwar push for modernization. From Oiticica's late-'50s experiments with painting and color to his mid-'60s wearable Parangoles, Irene V. Small traces a series of artistic procedures that foreground his later inclusion of the spectator. Analyzing artworks and a wealth of archival material, she shows how Oiticica's work recast – in a sense "folded" – Brazil's utopian vision of progress and the legacy of European constructive art. Ultimately, "Helio Oiticica" argues that the effectiveness of Oiticica's participatory works stems not from a renunciation of art, but rather from their ability to dialogue with their surroundings and reimagine the traditional boundaries between art and life.

Contents:

Note on the Text
Introduction

1. The Folded and the Flat
2. The Cell and the Plan
3. Ready-Constructible Color
4. What a Body Can Do

Coda
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index

About the Author

Irene V. Small is assistant professor in the Department of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University, where she is also an affiliated faculty member in the Latin American studies program and the media and modernity program.

Reviews

"Helio Oiticica brilliantly manages to fill gaps in knowledge about this important artist while challenging conventional wisdom through both archival research and adept analysis of art works. Small is wonderful at making points visually – by reference to certain details of art objects or documents – and does it in lucid, striking prose. This study will set a high bar for scholarship to come" – Carrie Lambert-Beatty, author of "Being Watched: Yvonne Rainer and the 1960s"

"This impressive text on Oiticica is the most profound investigation of his work to date. I have rarely come across such a compelling and exhaustive account of a Brazilian artist from this period. Small's book proves that Oiticica's 'folding the frame' was much more than a simple experimental turn: it was, single-handedly, the ultimate folding of modern abstraction into its many unexpected, antithetical, and promising alter-forms" – Luis Perez-Oramas, Latin American Art Curator, The Museum of Modern Art

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