The Neue Nationalgalerie will show Brazilian artist Lygia Clark’s (1920–1988) first retrospective in Germany. With around 150 artworks, the comprehensive show in the upper hall will present her oeuvre from the 1950s to the 1980s, ranging from geometric-abstract paintings to participatory sculptures and performances. The interactive approach in Clark’s work will be a central aspect of the exhibition. Visitors can interact with a large number of replicas created especially for the show.

Lygia Clark is regarded as a radical innovator as she fundamentally redefined the relationship between artist and viewer, artwork and space. As a leading figure of Neoconcretismo (the Neo-Concrete movement), initiated in Rio de Janeiro in 1959, she understood art as an organic phenomenon. She demanded a subjective, body-related and sensorial art experience, which included the viewer’s active participation. This participatory approach within Clark’s work will be available for visitors to experience through interaction with exhibition copies of sculptures and sensory objects. In addition, regular performances and workshops will activate the work of this outstanding twentieth-century artist.

After the early Constructivist paintings composed of various wooden panels, Clark turned away from painting altogether in the 1960s and developed her idea of the artwork as a body. She produced geometric sculptures that are movable constructions. When viewers fold them, they assume different configurations. After the dissolution of the Neo-Concrete group in 1961, Clark continued to develop her idea of the artwork as a living organism until her late work in the 1980s. In the early 1970s, she created her series Corpo Coletivo (Collective Body), meaning community-building, performative actions for participants in a group. Towards the end of her career, Clark developed her own body-based therapy, which implemented her art objects.

The retrospective at the Neue Nationalgalerie brings together around 150 loans from international private collections and museums, including the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo and the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, the Museu de Arte Moderna in Rio de Janeiro and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Exhibition Catalogue

The exhibition is accompanied by a bilingual exhibition catalogue in German and English at the E. A. Seemann Verlag. It is the first German-language publication on Lygia Clark and provides a comprehensive overview of her work.

Curators

The exhibition is curated by Irina Hiebert Grun and Maike Steinkamp, Neue Nationalgalerie

Funded by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation) and the Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien (Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media).

Organized in cooperation with the Kunsthaus Zürich, where the show will be on view from autumn 2025 to spring 2026.

A special exhibition of the Nationalgalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin