Hélio Oiticica
Hélio Oiticica (; July 26, 1937 – March 22, 1980) was a Brazilian visual artist, sculptor, painter, performance artist, and theorist, best known for his participation in the Neo-Concrete Movement, for his innovative use of color, and for what he later termed "environmental art", which included "Parangolés" and "Penetrables," like the famous "Tropicália." Oiticica was also a filmmaker and writer. Early life and education. Oiticica was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to mother Ângela Santos Oiticica and father José Oiticica Filho. He had two younger brothers, architect César Oiticica, and Cláudio Oiticica. Oiticica's family was educated and  involved in liberal politics. His father taught mathematics, was an engineer, entomologist, and lepidopterologist, a scientist who researched butterflies. He was also an avid photographer, creating experimental photographs that were new to Brazil. His grandfather was a well known philologist, who studied literary texts and written records, and published an anarchist newspaper called "Ação Direta [Direct Action]." Oiticica and his brothers were taught at home until their father got a fellowship at the Guggenheim Foundation. During this time, from 1947 to 1949, the family lived in Washington, D.C. while their father worked at the National Museum of Natural History. Oiticica  and his brothers attended Thomson Elementary School. The family returned to Brazil in 1950. Oiticica enrolled in art school at the age of 16 years. Starting in 1954, Oiticica attended courses at Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janeiro, studying under Ivan Serpa. In 1955, he joined Grupo Frente. Career. Early career. Oiticica's early works, in the mid-1950s, were greatly influenced by European modern art movements, principally Concrete art and De Stijl. He was a member of Grupo Frente, founded by Ivan Serpa, under whom he had studied painting. His early paintings used a palette of strong, bright primary  and secondary colours and geometric shapes influenced by artists such as Piet Mondrian, Paul Klee and Kazimir Malevich. Oiticica's painting quickly gave way to a much warmer and more subtle palette of oranges, yellows, reds and browns which he maintained, with some exceptions, for the rest of his life. In 1959, he became involved in the short-lived but influential Neo-Concrete Movement. The Neo-Concrete Movement rejected the objective nature of Concrete Art and sought to use phenomenology to create art that "expresses complex human realities." This was stated in the manifesto written by Amílcar de Castro, Ferreira  Gullar, Franz Weissmann, Lygia Clark, Lygia Pape, Reynaldo Jardim, Theon Spanudis and published in Rio de Janeiro in March 1959 called "Manifesto neoconcreto." Neo-Concretism focused creating an awareness within the spectator of their spatial relationship with the artwork. The artworks themselves became akin to living organism rather than static forms; they were made to interact with viewers. During Oiticica’s Neo-Concrete period, he sought to “escape the constraints of painting while remaining in dialogue with it” by utilizing color in new ways. He painted monochromes entitled Invencoes (Inventions) in 1959. These small square wooden plaques (30 x 30  cm) were not made to represent light rather Oiticica sought to embody it. Oiticica questioned traditional ideas of aesthetics and art practices by considering the spectator and ideas of real space in his work. The group disbanded in 1961. Clark and Oiticica transitioned into conceptual art dealing with ideas of the human body and culture. Oiticica was specifically interested in what creates culture. Color became a key subject of Oiticica's work and he experimented with paintings and hanging wooden sculptures with subtle (sometimes barely perceptible) differences in colour within or between the sections. The hanging sculptures gradually grew in  scale and later works consisted on many hanging sections forming the overall work, as a spatial development of his first experiments with painting. International recognition and later work. In the 1960s, he produced a series of small box shaped interactive sculptures called Bólides (fireballs) which had panels and doors which viewers could move and explore. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s he made installations called Penetráveis (penetrables) which viewers could step into and interact with. The most influential of these was "Tropicália" (1967) which gave its name to the Tropicalismo movement. He also created works called "Parangolés" which consisted layers of  fabric, plastic and matting intended to be worn like costumes but experienced as mobile sculptures. The first parangolés experiences were made together with dancers from the Mangueira Samba school, where Oiticica was also a participant. In the 1970s, Oiticica increasingly devoted himself to writing and frequently corresponded with several important intellectuals, artists and writers both in Brazil and abroad, including Haroldo de Campos, Augusto de Campos, Silviano Santiago and Waly Salomão. In 1965 he participated in the exhibition “Soundings two” at Signals gallery London, with Josef Albers, Brancusi, Lygia Clark, and Marcel Duchamp among others. In 1969 he produced an  individual exhibition at Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, curated by Guy Brett. Oiticica named the exhibition the “Whitechapel experience”. In 1970 he participated in the exhibition "Information" at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. After living in the East Village neighborhood of New York City, Oiticica had issues with immigration, which led to his return to Rio de Janeiro, where he died. Fire. On October 17, 2009, a fire destroyed an undetermined amount of the works by Oiticica. The collection was held at the residence of his brother César Oiticica in the neighborhood of Jardim Botânico, Rio de  Janeiro. In addition to paintings and the famous "Parangolés," the artist's archive of material included drawings, notes, documentaries and books, which were stored in the collection. The fire took three hours to bring under control. Key works such as "Bólides" and "Parangolés," including some shown at the 2007 Tate retrospective, were damaged. The cause of the fire is unknown. The building was equipped with fire alarms and other safety systems. Jandira Feghali, Secretary of Culture in Rio de Janeiro, called for an investigation into the causes of the fire and whether any works can be recovered. The works were  stored in César Oiticica's house following a dispute over money and the adequacy of storage facilities at the Centro Municipal de Arte Hélio Oiticica. The works were uninsured. A project of restoration is in development with the ministry of culture in Brazil. Personal life. Oiticica died in 1980 of a stroke as a result of hypertension. Oiticica was openly gay.