[one_half padding=”0 10px 0 10px”]Lygia Pape (1927-2004) was one of Brazil’s most influential artists of the 20th century. She worked in painting, printmaking, design, sculpture, dance, performance, film and installation and was a founding member of the Neo-Concrete movement, which is often seen as the beginning of contemporary art in Brazil.
This installation Ttéia (“Web”), was conceived in 1979 but was not realised in full scale until the 1990’s. It is made up of nine semi-transparent rectangular prisms, each created using nothing but stretched golden thread. The prisms have square platform bases, which nails are drilled into, allowing the golden threads to be wrapped around them and stretched from floor to ceiling. The resulting geometric shafts are strategically illuminated to emphasise their shimmer.
The result is a mesmerising and immersive experience; the strings seem to turn to beams of ethereal moonlight in the otherwise dark exhibition space, they reveal and conceal themselves as the visitor walks around them, shifting and denying the viewer any complete grasp of them.[/one_half][one_half_last padding=”0 10px 0 10px”]
In 2010 The Gallery Lygia Pape was designed by Rizoma Arquitetura with the sole purpose of housing Ttéia. The gallery is situated on a plateau surrounded by forest. On approach, the visitor is confronted with a concrete cube with triangulated facades. The gallery has no windows, a small entranceway, and an almost entirely dark interior.
The structure is designed to mimic the character of the installation it holds. Ttéia is a work with no directionality, it invites the visitor to circulate around it instead of presenting itself to be easily understood; disorientation is intentional.
‘The circulation is dark and tortuous and extracts the visitor from the “outside world”, taking him to a place of introspection, reflection and spirituality, created by Ttéia’.
Discover more work by Lygia Pape here.
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