Helio Oiticica's "Homage to Mondrian" (Photo by Michael Stravato for The New York Times)

Hélio Oiticica (Rio de Janeiro, 1937 – idem, 1980). Together with his brother, César Oiticica, Hélio began studying painting and drawing with Ivan Serpa at the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro – MAM/RJ [Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro], in 1954. In the same year, he wrote his first text on the visual arts, after which, his recording in writing of reflections on art and his output became a habit. He took part in the Grupo Frente [Frente Group] in 1955 and 1956, and in 1959, became a member of the Neoconcrete Group. He abandoned his two-dimensional works and created spatial reliefs, bolides [fireballs/meteors], capes, standards, tents and penetrables.

In 1964, he began to make the so-called Manifestações Ambientais [Environmental Demonstrations]. At the opening of the Opinião 65 [Opinion 65] show, at the MAM/RJ, he protested when entry to the museum was denied to his friends, members of the Mangueira samba school, and he was expelled from the museum, holding a collective demonstration in front of it, in which the Parangolés were worn by his samba school friends. He took part in the Opinião 66 [Opinion 66] and Nova Objetividade Brasileira [New Brazilian Objectivity], presenting the Tropicália environmental demonstration. In 1968, he held the collective demonstration, Apocalipopótese [Apocalypopothesis] on the Aterro do Flamengo [Flamengo Land Reclamation Project], which included his Parangolés and Lygia Pape‘s Ovos [Eggs]. In 1969, at the Whitechapel Gallery, in London, he realised what he called the Whitechapel Experience, presenting the Éden [Eden] project.

For most of the 1970s, he lived in New York, during which period, he was a visiting scholar of the Guggenheim Foundation, taking part in the Information show, at the Museum of Modern Art – MoMA. He returned to Brazil in 1978. After his death, the Projeto Hélio Oiticica [Hélio Oiticica Project] was created in Rio de Janeiro, in 1981, with the aim of preserving, analysing and promoting his work, under the direction of Lygia Pape, Luciano Figueiredo and Waly Salomão.

Between 1992 and 1997, the Projeto HO staged a major retrospective that was presented in the cities of Rotterdam, Paris, Barcelona, Lisbon, Minneapolis and Rio de Janeiro. In 1996, the Secretaria Municipal de Cultura do Rio de Janeiro [Municipal Secretariat of Culture of Rio de Janeiro] established the Centro de Artes Hélio Oiticica [Hélio Oiticica Centre for the Arts], to house the entire collection of the artist and open it to the public.

via Oiticica, Hélio (1937 – 1980).

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