Lygia Clark: The Abandonment of Art, 1948–1988

Lygia Clark, Architecture Maquettes (as a group)

Lygia Clark, Architecture Maquettes (as a group)

Lygia Clark. Maquete para interior (Maquette for the interior). 1955
Industrial ink on wood
Private collection

Glenn Lowry: In these maquettes, or architectural models, Clark extends her investigation of the organic line – which, for her, meant creating incisions and openings into the body of her works. Luis Perez-Oramas:

Luis Perez-Oramas: What she calls an "organic line" is something that she compares with, let's say, a door that opens within a wall, as we see in these maquettes, or that she compares to the frame of a window. So, these maquettes, featuring all these elements, are to be conceived as thinking process towards the organic line.

Glenn Lowry: Connie Butler:

Connie Butler: : What's also interesting about these architectural models is that we can see Clark beginning to think of architecture in terms of the body – not only the relationship of the body to architecture itself, but architecture as a body, as something that lives and breathes and encompasses space.

We can think of the paint applied to these architectural models almost as if it's a skin applied to the architecture. And this is, again, a kind of metaphorical way of thinking about architecture as the body.

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