Lygia Pape was part of the generation of artists who founded the Neo-concrete movement in Brazil, an experimental moment of constructivism and geometric abstract art, which manifested in South America in the late 1950’s. Neoconcretist artists like Pape sought to explore ideas of colour and form in relation to the sensorial cartography of the individual and the collective.

The work Divisor was originally performed on the streets of Rio de Janeiro in 1968. It is composed of an immense white fabric, which can be seen as a large scale white monochrome and is activated by a participative audience. The only visible part of each participant is their head, piercing through the fabric, whilst their hidden bodies jointly move along public space. The amorphous mutant forms created throughout the piece reflect the subjectivity of the participants who struggle between individualism and solidarity with the collective experience.

Having recently been performed at the artist’s latest retrospective in the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid, Divisor is being reenacted for the first time in Asia at two locations in Hong Kong as part of the exhibition A Journal of the Plague Year. Fear, ghosts, rebels. SARS, Leslie and the Hong Kong story curated by Cosmin Costinas and Inti Guerrero.

Para Site Art Space is financially supported by Springboard Grant under the Arts Capacity Development Funding Scheme of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

–

The content of this programme does not reflect the views of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.