The Neue Nationalgalerie will show on 23th May 2025 the Brazilian artist Lygia Clark’s (1920–1988) first retrospective in Germany. With around 120 artworks, the comprehensive show in the upper hall will present her oeuvre from the late 1940s to the 1980s, ranging from geometricabstract paintings to participatory sculptures and performances. The interactive approach in Clark’s work will be a central aspect of the exhibition. Visitors can interact with a large number of replicas created especially for the show.
A special exhibition by Nationalgalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin in cooperation with Kunsthaus Zürich
Abb. oben: Lygia Clark mit ihren „Unidades“ während der Neokonkretistischen Ausstellung, Rio de Janeiro, 1959, © Cultural Association “The World of Lygia Clark” (Ref. 20878)
Klaus Biesenbach, Director of Neue Nationalgalerie: “We are delighted to present Lygia Clark, one of the most important and yet – in Germany – least known artists of the 20th century. For the first time in Berlin, a large public will be able to discover her important, influential and engaging work presented comprehensively at Neue Nationalgalerie.”
Lygia Clark is regarded as a radical innovator as she fundamentally redefined the relationship between artist and viewer, artwork and space. As a leading figure of Neoconcretismo (the Neo-Concrete movement), initiated in Rio de Janeiro in 1959, she understood art as an organic phenomenon. She demanded a subjective, body-related and sensorial art experience, which included the viewer’s active participation. This participatory approach within Clark’s work will be available for visitors to experience through interaction with exhibition copies. In addition, regular performances will activate the work of this outstanding twentieth-century artist.
Lygia Clark’s approach to understanding art as a participatory, sensual, or even therapeutic experience makes her internationally one of the most innovative artists of the twentieth century. Her work testifies to her close connections with European Modernity, particularly Concrete Art, but also to her emancipation from them. Clark profoundly influenced later generations with her art and, even today, she is a major source of inspiration for contemporary artists. The extraordinary significance of her works lies in the fact that she expanded the primacy of the visual to include other sensory perceptions such as hearing, feeling, smelling and touching. In this way, passive viewers became active participants in an individual art experience
At the beginning of her career, Lygia Clark made geometric-abstract paintings. After 1954, she began rupturing the canvas. Her relief-like wood panels created a connection to space. With the founding of the neoconcrete movement, she took the step into three-dimensional space. The members of the Neoconcretismo considered the artwork as an organic, living phenomenon. These principles are expressed in Clark’s Bichos (Critters), which are geometric, movable sculptures that can be folded into ever new positions by the viewer. This led to the creation of her Objetos Sensoriais (Sensory Objects), including glasses, masks and suits that extended the recipients’ sensory experience to the whole body. At the end of the 1960s, she developed her concept of the Corpo Coletivo (Collective Body), which describes community-building, performative actions. Towards the end of her career, Clark finally developed a body-related therapy method in which her art objects were used.
The aim of the retrospective is to highlight Clark’s international importance for the development of 20th century art and to introduce her to a broad audience in Germany. The exhibition in the Neue Nationalgalerie presents her entire oeuvre. Her interactive work will have a special impact in the glass exhibition hall of the Neue Nationalgalerie. The retrospective brings together around 120 loans from international private collections and museums, including the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, the Museu de Arte Moderna in Rio de Janeiro, as well as the Museum of Modern Art and the Cisneros Collection in New York.
The exhibition will feature various performances conceived by Lygia Clark twice a week. In addition to a diverse educational program with guided tours and workshops for families, schoolchildren and adults, the exhibition will be accompanied by an extensive program of events, with lectures, concerts and performances. As part of the exhibition, a scientific symposium on Lygia Clark will take place at the Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut on October 2 and 3, 2025.
A bilingual catalogue in German and English will be published by E. A. Seemann Verlag to accompany the exhibition. It is the first Germanlanguage publication on Lygia Clark. 256 pages, 230 colour as well as black and white illustrations, hardcover, ISBN 978-3-86502-546-3 (German edition) / ISBN 978-3-69001-001-6 (English edition), price: 42 €.
Lygia Clark. Retrospective is curated by Irina Hiebert Grun and Maike Steinkamp, Neue Nationalgalerie.
The exhibition is conceived in cooperation with the Kunsthaus Zürich.
WHEN?
Opening: Thursday, 22th May 2025, 7 pm
Exhibition dates: Friday, 23rd May – Sunday 12th October 2025
WHERE?
Kulturforum Berlin, Neue Nationalgalerie
Potsdamer Straße 50
10785 Berlin
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