Metaesquema (Dois brancos) 1958

Curator: Before us we have Hélio Oiticica’s "Metaesquema (Dois brancos)" created in 1958. It's a collage of black geometric forms arranged on a white background, simple yet striking, what do you see? Editor: My immediate impression is of raw materials, or building blocks and how labor is implied here...these forms, these slightly off-kilter rectangles of heavy black paper give me this very visceral sense of their handmade quality. Not polished perfection, but a tangible thing. Curator: It feels like a disrupted order. I sense the underlying tension, a constant striving for balance in what's ultimately an unstable configuration. It makes me question rigid structures... and this need for imposed structures. Editor: It does have that organized yet anarchic element, but if we dig deeper, especially when considering Oiticica's larger body of work, we find his rejection of traditional notions of art’s creation. It isn’t only about abstraction or geometric exploration; it challenges the very role of the artist. Do you know if he actually cut all of this? How long? I mean these basic questions matter in how we see. Curator: Perhaps. He invites a playful destruction, this need to take apart a surface, rearrange a grid to hint at movement... freedom to create his own reality with minimal constraints. It's a dance on the edge. Editor: True. A closer look at the background suggests a certain kind of material awareness. The surface isn't a smooth canvas; it’s textured and shows marks from production or maybe deliberate artistic choices that ground the image and point us back to art as work. Not as commodity, not even an act. A verb. Curator: Absolutely, it speaks of a certain intentionality and commitment. He has indeed questioned the meaning of existence through colour and space and shape to create what many critics refer to as 'constructions.' What a loaded word when it comes to art. It invites the viewer to play, dance and participate in this creation. He really wanted to break from the formal distance, the static nature, to experience it within our body. I’d imagine a wonderful dialogue... a sensory experience through simple form. Editor: He forces us to confront this. Think of how "art" as labor shifts under these pressures. We are not viewing Oiticica’s art in isolation; instead, we need to place it within Brazil's burgeoning social and artistic movements, and the historical-economic shifts of that moment, and question art production as social critique. Curator: A complex interplay that keeps unveiling layer after layer of meanings! Editor: Agreed! From building blocks to societal building. A worthwhile material perspective on things, eh?