This summer the Museum of Modern Art Oxford presents sculptures and installations by seventeen of Brazil’s most influential and ground-breaking artists. 

Experiment/Experiência begins with work from the late 50s by Lygia Clark, Hélio Oiticica and Lygia Pape, and explores how they have influenced and inspired subsequent generations of Brazilian artists, including Ernesto Neto and José Damasceno.

In the 1950s, Brazilian artists began to produce increasingly experimental work in sculpture and relief. At the centre of this activity were the artists Lygia Clark and Hélio Oiticica, who were pioneers of the new Neo-Concrete movement emerging from Rio de Janeiro.  Shown at the Signals Gallery in London in the 1960s, their work, and that of their contemporaries Mira Schendel and Sérgio Camargo, reached a wide international audience and began to establish Brazilian art as amongst the most radical in the world. 

Since then, Brazil has witnessed a proliferation of ever more experimental work by two successive generations of artists from a nation that has undergone profound political and socio-economic change. The most powerful works produced have been in sculpture and installation. Many works take organic forms and emphasise the sensuousness of the materials used.  Some are rooted in ideas surrounding movement, the body, physical interaction, performance and dance as seen in the monumental and expansive flowing steel and perspex structures of Iole de Freitas. By contrast, Jac Leirner’s elegant sculptures made from obsessively collected found materials such as old money, take more minimal forms, and are imbued with wry social commentary. Different again, Rosângela Renno’s photographic installations make more direct references to questioning issues of cultural and national identity.

Experiment/Experiência brings the work of these three generations of artists together for the first time in the UK, and will include: Waltercio Caldas, Sergio Camargo, Lygia Clark, Iole de Freitas, José Damasceno, Antonio Dias, Carmela Gross, Jac Leirner, Antonio Manuel, Ernesto Neto, Hélio Oiticica, Lygia Pape, Rivane Neuenschwander, Nuno Ramos, Rosângela Rennó, José Resende, Mira Schendel and Tunga.

Although many contemporary Brazilian artists such as Ernesto Neto have already achieved international acclaim, the exhibition also presents the work of important Brazilian artists, such as José Resende, who although less well-known here, are celebrated as seminal figures of contemporary art in their own country.

Experiment/Experiência is organised in collaboration with BrasilConnects and is curated by Nelson Aguilar and Astrid Bowron.  A catalogue will be produced to accompany the exhibition.

Experiment/Experiência has received additional support from The Henry Moore Foundation.