Lygia Pape - Concrete Art

Concrete Art

By the age of 20, Lygia Pape had joined the concrete art movement. The term "concrete art" is attributed to Theo van Doesburg, who founded the name in 1930. Concrete art intended to defend the objectivity of art though paintings that "have no other significance than ." It forbade the use of natural forms, lyricism and sentiment. Concrete art movement first appeared in Brazil after the São Paulo Bienal in 1951. The Bienal inspired the formation of two Brazilian Concrete art groups: the Ruptura, based in São Paulo, and the Frente, based in Rio de Janeiro. The Ruptura had rigid theories of painting and emphasized the two-dimensionality of the support (often metal), the use of glossy enamel over traditional oil paints, modularity, and rationality over expression. Their counterpart was the Frente artists, which had a less rigid approach to Concrete art. In the mid to late 1950s, the Ruptura group and the Frente group clashed when the Ruptura artists accused those in the Frente Group of valuing experience over theory and embracing experimentation, expressiveness, and subjectivity. In 1959, the Rio artists, including Lygia Pape, broke away from the rigidity of Concrete art and formed a Neo-concrete group.