KATARZYNA KOBRO / LYGIA CLARK

The exhibition is a special project confronting works of two remarkable figures of 20th century art. Artists, whose achievements have permanently set the standard of world art. Katarzyna Kobro – a sculptor, painter and art theoretician, is considered as one of the most important representatives of Polish and international constructivist avant-garde. Whereas Lygia Clark is one of the most recognizable South American artists, involved in the international avant-garde movement.
The exhibition held by Muzeum Sztuki in Lodz represents a dialogue between two strong and independent artistic personalities, a virtual conversation held by means of the artworks, despite thousands of kilometers and decades separating their authors.
Kobro’s and Clark’s artistic activities meet on several layers.
The most obvious one is constructivism, which Kobro was engaged in, and which represented a vital starting point for Clark. Another aspect of art, which both artists shared, is the fact that their creativity exceeded the boundaries of constructivist’s rationalism and mechanistic idea. Katarzyna Kobro and Lygia Clark paid great attention to the relations between body and space and to the way in which they define each other. These interests led the Polish artist to Spatial compositions, created in relation to the body movement in space. While the Brasilian artist was led to activities involving the viewer in the process of creating works of art, and eventually to therapeutic practices where the human, considered as a psychosomatic phenomenon, was the only recipient. Confrontation of the artists’ works provokes reflections upon the hidden potential of constructivism and draws attention to possibilities of its development in different ways than those usually credited to post-constructivism.

VERNISSAGE: 21.11. 2008 (Friday), 6p.m
Curator: Jarosław Suchan
Curatorial cooperation: Alessandra Clark
Scientific consultation: Paolo Herkenhof