Lygia Clark – Hélio Oiticica | Letters 1964–1974

From 1964 to 1974, two leading artists of the Brazilian ‘Neo-Concrete Movement,’ Lygia Clark and Hélio Oiticica, had an extraordinary correspondence which has now been translated into English. The letters are, first and foremost, a testimony to their friendship and complicities, bonds that had grown since the mid-1950s, when they first met amid an atmosphere of huge creative ferment in Brazil. Their encounter turned out to be transcendental in the life and career of both, in a country that was, moreover, preparing for the surge of the so-called second Modernidade, the artistic development which, according to Ivo Mesquita, began in the 1950s and lasted until the 1980s.

The letters are much more than unexpected, privileged accounts of the international art scene, told in the register of the intimacies of letter-writing. They are a testimony of affection, respect, trust, and fidelity—artistic too—of two friends who were also two great artists. These layers present a mix of journeys, impressions, and clues about their works; proximities, complicities, and even hardships and worries, those that inhabit the life of human beings.

This book gives continuity to the Ars Litterae series which—following the footsteps of LiberArs, artists books for all—has the goal of making little-known texts by twentieth-century artists accessible to readers around the world, and in an agreeable format. The Ars Litterae series is directed by Estrella de Diego, Academician of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, writer, researcher and professor of History of Art at Universidad Complutense de Madrid.