Limited to two colors on shaped wood, Neoconcrete Relief diverges from the traditional format and function of a painting as a rectangular canvas on which figures or shapes are depicted. Instead, it asserts itself three-dimensionally into the environment. As Oiticica wrote, “The wall here serves not as a background but as an extraneous, unlimited space, though necessary to the vision of the work.”
Gallery label from 2022
Neoconcrete Relief is simultaneously a painting and an object that questions the identity and function of both: a three–dimensional plane, whose presence in the exhibition space implies a physical encounter between the viewer and the work. The artist wrote, "The wall here serves not as a background but as an extraneous, unlimited space, though necessary to the vision of the work." It belongs to a group of paintings that Oiticica conceived as manifestos for a break with the traditional rectangular picture plane. Limited to two colors on wood, it is a nonrepresentational work in which the plane functions actively, rather than as a support for figures or colors.
Gallery label from 2006
