Lygia Clark: The Abandonment of Art, 1948–1988

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Lygia Clark. _O dentro é o fora (The inside is the outside)_. 1963

Lygia Clark. O dentro é o fora (The inside is the outside). 1963

Stainless steel
16 x 17 1/2 x 14 3/4" (40.6 x 44.5 x 37.5 cm)
Gift of Patricia Phelps de Cisneros through the Latin American and Caribbean Fund in honor of Adriana Cisneros de Griffin

Glenn Lowry: Clark made this stainless steel sculpture, O dentro é o fora, or The Inside is the Outside,, in 1963. She thought of it as the last one of her Bichos, or "critters." The artist explained how she felt when she held this piece:

Lygia Clark (read by voice actor): What moves me in the sculpture O dentro é o fora, is that it transforms the perception I have of myself, of my body. It transforms me and I become formless, elastic…Its lungs are mine.

Connie Butler: : We see this idea of the line taking shape very literally in the sculpture. The metal begins to move, and lilt, and rise, and fall within the sculpture itself.

Glenn Lowry: Clark meant for viewers to hold it.

Luis Perez-Oramas: There is a new kind of fluidity that you actually experience by holding the sculpture that also tends to collapse between your hands as you hold it. And it is this kind of fluidity, this kind of passage between the outside and the inside, that makes this one of the most important sculptures ever produced by Lygia Clark.

Glenn Lowry: Right after Clark made this work, she produced a related series of metal sculptures that she called Trepantes, or _Grubs_s. You'll find them nearby.