Oil on wood
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.”
2022
Gallery label from 2006
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.
Provenance
The artist.
1998 - 2004, Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, New York, and Caracas, purchased through Galeria César Aché, Rio de Janeiro.
2004, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, acquired as gift from Patricia Phelps de Cisneros.
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