Neo-Concrete movement. Research.

During the twentieth century many artists sought out to pioneer a new genre succeeding the geometric forms made abundant by the likes of Picasso and George Braque. In the decades following, various movements sprung out of Cubism from the motion-focused compositions of fascist Futurists to the primary colour rectangles of De Stijl. By the late 1930’s a style emphasising extreme flatness, rational forms and a distancing from reality emerged that was known as Concrete art. Concrete art was practised in many regions but becoming especially popular in Brazil. Some artists found the practical, almost mathematical approach dissatisfying and sought to find an alternative.

In Brazil in the late 1950’s a group of artists led by Helio Oiticica and Lygia Clark founded the Neo-Concrete movement. These artists sought to combine the structured approach of Minimalism and Constructivist styles with a deeper communication on feeling.

Their manifesto (penned by poet Ferreira Gullar) speaks out against “the kind of concrete art that is influenced by a dangerously acute rationalism” and encourages concrete art to be “re-evaluated with reference to their power of expression rather than to the theories on which they based their art.” These artists felt their movement was “born out of the need to express the complex reality of modern humanity inside the structural language of a new plasticity,”,

focusing on personal expression and thus contrary to the scientific and positivist ideas consuming much of western art at the time.