"Magnetized space" exhibition catalogue, Reina Sofía Museum, May 25- October 3, 2011.

Catalogue for Lygia Pape’s exhibition Magnetised Space, organised by Museo Reina Sofía in collaboration with Projeto Lygia Pape. Linked to Grupo Frente’s concretismo, the artist soon relates herself with the neoconcreta avant-garde and with other artists like Lygia Clark and Hélio Oiticica, and poets like Ferreira Gullar. Despite the comparison of Pape’s work with these artists, her work, focusing on poetry, writing and experience, she has lacked critical acknowledgement in parallel to these artists. The catalogue texts, much like the exhibition, explore the artist’s efforts for a language that echoes a new sensible order.

The work of Lygia Pape (1927-2004) arose in a setting very much characterised by a spirit of renewal. In Brazil, one of the most innovative art contexts in the second half of the 20th century, the tensions inherent in the arrival of modernism coexisted with the opposite extreme: dictatorships, false economic miracles and cultural movements based on local considerations, yet doomed to live in exile. Linked to the Concretism movement of Grupo Frente, she soon became associated with the Neo-Concrete current, along with artists such as Lygia Clark, Hélio Oiticica, and poets, such as Ferreira Gullar.
Authors: Manuel J. Borja-Villel y Teresa Velázquez, Ivana Bentes, Guy Brett, Lauro Cavalcanti, Paulo Herkenhoff, Lygia Pape, Luiz Camillo Osorio, Paulo Venancio Filho