Lygia Clark: The Abandonment of Art, 1948–1988

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Lygia Clark. _Planos em superfície modulada no. 4 (Planes in modulated surface no. 4)._ 1957

Lygia Clark. Planos em superfície modulada no. 4 (Planes in modulated surface no. 4). 1957

Formica and industrial paint on wood
39 1/4 x 39 1/4" (99.7 x 99.7 cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Gift of Patricia Phelps de Cisneros through the Latin American and Caribbean Fund in honor of Kathy Fuld, 2008

Glenn Lowry: Connie Butler:

Connie Butler: : In 1957, Clark made a group of paintings called Planes in Modulated Surface. Here again, Clark is using this idea of the spiral or the pivoting around some central axis in order to initiate movement within her painting. Also in this room are many studies related to this painting. It's nearly impossible to tell the order in which they were made. Clark was thinking through and making them in such rapid succession.

And what's interesting about this is her moving through ideas about movement, about transformation, about reflexivity, about reflection, about black and white, about binaries, all of these different kinds of ways of initiating geometric compositions in these studies and paintings. And we can almost feel her beginning to be frustrated with the confines of the painting with the confines of the geometry of the painted surface.