English

The Desire for Form – O Desejo da Forma
Neoconcretismo and Contemporary Art from Brazil

[Das Verlangen nach Form – O Desejo da Forma. Neoconcretismo und zeitgenössische Kunst aus Brasilien]

Running time  Sept. 3 – Nov. 7, 2010
Venue Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg 10, 10557 Berlin-Tiergarten, Germany, Tel. + 49 (30) 200 57-2000, info@adk.de
Opening hours Tues – Sun, 11 am – 8 pm
Admission 6 euros, 4 euros (reduced rate)
Free admission on the 1st Sunday of the month and for visitors under 18 years of age
Exhibition Opening Thursday, September 2, 2010, 7 pm, free admission

In the late 1950s Brazil found itself in an unprecedented period of cultural, social and economic change. Brasília, the new capital, was designed at the drawing board and constructed in just a few years. The bossa nova revolutionized the music scene. And the fine arts articulated a new artistic outlook in Neoconcretismo – geometric strictness of concrete art combined with sensuous pleasure in playfullness, subjectivity and expressiveness.

The exhibition at the Akademie der Künste presents a survey of the enormous artistic powers of creativity characterizing this period. Works by the most influential artists of this epoch will be shown, for instance by Hélio Oiticica, Lygia Clark, Lygia Pape, Ivan Serpa, Aluísio Carvão, Amilcar de Castro and Franz Weissmann. The exhibition also illustrates the mutual interlacing of art and culture with architecture, focusing primarily on the icons of Brazilian architecture of that era, Lucio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer, the designers of Brasília. The pioneering period of Brazilian culture in the 1950s becomes apparent. An independent Brazilian Modernism, for whose breakthrough this economically supported revolutionary spirit offered a favorable climate, was created from the adaptation of "Western" Modernism.

Installation, sculptures and films by Iole de Freitas, Waltercio Caldas, Carlos Bevilacqua, Carla Guagliardi, Cao Guimarães and Pablo Lobato, will provide insight into the developments from Neoconcretismo and its traces in Brazilian art today.

Curators: Luiz Camillo Osorio (Rio de Janeiro), Robert Kudielka (Berlin)

A catalogue publication accompanies the exhibition: Das Verlangen nach Form – O Desejo da Forma. Neoconcretismo und zeitgenössische Kunst aus Brasilien [The Desire for Form – O Desejo da Forma. Neoconcretismo and Contemporary Art from Brazil] (Ger./Eng.), 167 color illustrations, 296 pages, 27.5 x 21.5 cm, Akademie der Künste, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-88331-162-3, 35 Euros


Carla Guagliardi: Verso (Rückseite), 2007. Holz, Ballons, Luft und Zeit. Installationsmass ca. 800 x 800 cm. Foto: Vicente de Mello © Carla Guagliardi

Amilcar de Castro: Ohne Titel, 1964. Stahl, 33 x 45 x 26 cm. Sammlung Márcia & Luiz Chrysostomo, Rio de Janeiro. Foto: Jaime Acioli © Amílcar de Castro. Licensed by inarts.com