Lygia Clark

*1920 in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil, died in 1988 in Rio de Janeiro.
At the age of 27, she studied with the landscape-architect Roberto Burle Marx in Rio de Janeiro; 1950-52 with Arpad Szènes and Fernand Léger in Paris; 1952 exhibition of abstract painting in the Ministério da Educaçao e Cultura in Rio de
Janeiro; 1953 participation in the Biennial of São Paulo; 1964 participant in the »Grupo Frente«, from which the Concretism movement in Rio de Janeiro emerged; 1954-58 series of paintings which are concerned with Constructivist parameters; 1955 and 1957 participation in the Biennial of São Paulo and 1957 in the I Exposiçao Nacional de Arte Concreto in Rio de Janeiro; 1959 signer of the Neo-Concretism Manifest; After 1959, use of objects in which the observer is actively integrated, especially after 1965 with Happenings and Performances; 1970-75 position as instructor at the Sorbonne in Paris.
The basic attitude in Clark´s work is anti-mechanical and biological. In the 70´s, she became increasingly interested in the therapeutic possibilities of art. Her later interactive works contain elements of Happening and Performance, but are more of an attempt to move along the fine line between temporally- and spacially-fixed art on the one hand, and psychotherapy on the other. From 1978 on, she dedicated herself solely to her practice as psychoanalyst.