Sundial is what Clark called a bicho, or critter—a type of sculpture whose hinged metal sheets can be folded into multiple configurations or flattened to a single plane. Though strictly geometric and carefully structured around several axes, the work becomes elusive and unpredictable once activated. Clark thought that to interact with Sundial was to engage in a process of mutual discovery and transformation through which identity—the participant’s and the work’s—can be radically redefined.
Sur moderno: Journeys of Abstraction—The Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Gift, October 21, 2019–March 14, 2020
Gallery label from 2006
Sundial belongs to Clark's Animals series, begun in 1960—a group of metal sculptures whose forms can be endlessly modified. The works in this series are flat, curving structures that fold in different ways along a spine–like axis. Capable of many variations in form, they can also be reduced to a flat plane. Sundial was conceived to invite the spectator to modify its foldable geometric shapes.
Provenance
The artist.
[Paulo Kuczynski, São Paulo]
? - 1996, Galeria César Aché, Río de Janeiro (archival code #581).
1996 - 2004, Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, New York and Caracas, purchased through Galeria César Aché.
2004, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, acquired as gift from Patricia Phelps de Cisneros.
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Lygia Clark
Brazilian, 1920–1988 19 works onlineThe notion that the work of art was more like a body than a discrete object was a radical idea that led many Brazilian artists to embrace the viewer’s subjective experience as the main criterion in art making.
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Participatory art
When artists include members of the public in their creative process and encourage them to become co-authors of the work.
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Arthur Jafa—Less Is Morbid
1 NorthOriginally from Tupelo, Mississippi, and trained as an architect and cinematographer, he has become well-known for his collages, montages, assemblages, and installations—combining images imbued with what he calls “affective capacity,” or the emotional power of association.
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