As one of the key figures of Brazil’s Neo-Concrete movement of the late 1950s and early 1960s, Lygia Pape developed a specific understanding of geometric abstraction that resulted in a radical new conception of concrete-constructivist art, challenging an overly rigid rationalism by moving toward more subjective, multi-sensorial modes of expression. Marking Pape’s first solo exhibition in Germany, this richly illustrated book presents the artist’s unusual creative power in all its breadth, drawing on a body of documents that is being published for the first time.

Against the backdrop of the tension between Brazil’s vibrant avant-garde and the growing political repression through the military dictatorship (1964–1985), Pape’s work reflects ethical and socio-political issues and harnesses experimental explorations of not just metaphorical geometric but social space to create poetic manifestations of subtle resistance. Emphasizing the primacy of the sensorial experience of the viewers, Pape went as far as to declare them to be the actual creators of her works.

Text by: Pauline Bachmann, Briony Fer, Susanne Gaensheimer, Paulo Herkenhoff, Cécile Huber, Isabelle Malz, Paula Pape, Luiza Proença, Tania Rivera, Michelle Farias Sommer, Felipe Scovino
Designed by: Pascal Storz, Fabian Bremer