22 BRAZIL Willys de Castro Objeto Ativo 1959-1960 gouache on graph paper 3 1/2 x 7 1/8 x 3/4 in. (8.9 x 18.1 x 1.9 cm.) Inscribed, titled and dated "objeto ativo Willys de Castro 1959/60" by Hércules Barsotti on the reverse of the frame.
Provenance Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner Catalogue Essay "All of Willys de Castro’s works have an element of silence, present in both the humility of scale and use of materials." Steve Roden Despite having completed a university degree in chemistry, Willys de Castro worked as a painter, printmaker, theatre designer, graphic designer, concrete poet and composer. His highly diverse creative output nevertheless did not impede him from excelling within individual fields. In theatre alone his achievements were considerable, designing sets and costumes while working for several of the most established and experimental theatre companies in Brazil, in addition to founding and editing significant journals on the subject, such as Teatro Brasileiro (Brazilian Theatre) in 1955. In the field of fine art his work gained a constructivist orientation around 1953. It was also during the mid-1950s that he began producing visual poetry. Around this time, fellow artist Hércules Barsotti opened a graphic design studio, and these activities would have brought de Castro within the realm of the São Paulo concrete art (and poetry) groups. Subsequently, de Castro became a founding signatory of the 1959 Neoconcrete Manifesto in Rio de Janeiro, which formed as a reaction to the perceived orthodoxy of São Paulo concrete art and poetry. He was thus a complex character that cannot be easily framed within one particular genre or art movement, and his innovative contributions are broader than any individual association. His participation within the Neoconcrete group followed an educational trip to Europe in 1958, and his involvement to the movement would substantially further its theoretical engagement with phenomenology, being both highly significant and original. Although the Neoconcrete group, through their spokesman Ferreira Gullar, saw itself as further developing the legacy of European art concret, they rejected what they perceived to be the dogmatic rhetoric of the concrete art group in São Paulo that proposed mathematics as the basis for composition, whether in poetry or in other fields such as painting. As a signatory member of Neoconcretism, Willys de Castro exhibited in a series of shows that sought to firmly place the group within the cultural landscape across the country. These included exhibitions in Salvador, São Paulo, and Rio de Janeiro between 1959 and 1961. It was during this period that de Castro developed the notion of the active object, which questioned the two dimensional nature of the traditional canvas as the only possible support for painting. Here the materiality of the support was emphasised by the use of the actual side of the picture, as well as the positioning of other planes in varying angles with relation to the primary plane. For Ferreira Gullar, the active objects attempted to do away with the notion of a basic surface for painting by reducing the frontal plane of the work to merely a thread, that is to say, its own thickness. In this sense, the painting would continue around the perpendicular side of the support, a fact that the artist emphasised by inverting the colour of an element from the side of the plane to the plane itself. For Gullar, what made this operation interesting, in phenomenological terms, was the fact that it demonstrated, in painting’s own language, the conflict between the two-dimensional surface and real space in all its depth. The ground for the exploration of real space was thereby established, and it would lead to unexpected consequences. In this sense we find proximities, despite their distinct individual methods, between Willys de Castro’s work and other neoconcrete artists such as Hélio Oiticica Lygia Clark Amilcar de Castro, and Franz Weissmann whose work relied on being apprehended by spectators as they move across the gallery space. It was therefore only through time and movement in space that the work could be perceived in its entirety, even if only partially at a g
22 BRAZIL Willys de Castro Objeto Ativo 1959-1960 gouache on graph paper 3 1/2 x 7 1/8 x 3/4 in. (8.9 x 18.1 x 1.9 cm.) Inscribed, titled and dated "objeto ativo Willys de Castro 1959/60" by Hércules Barsotti on the reverse of the frame.
Provenance Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner Catalogue Essay "All of Willys de Castro’s works have an element of silence, present in both the humility of scale and use of materials." Steve Roden Despite having completed a university degree in chemistry, Willys de Castro worked as a painter, printmaker, theatre designer, graphic designer, concrete poet and composer. His highly diverse creative output nevertheless did not impede him from excelling within individual fields. In theatre alone his achievements were considerable, designing sets and costumes while working for several of the most established and experimental theatre companies in Brazil, in addition to founding and editing significant journals on the subject, such as Teatro Brasileiro (Brazilian Theatre) in 1955. In the field of fine art his work gained a constructivist orientation around 1953. It was also during the mid-1950s that he began producing visual poetry. Around this time, fellow artist Hércules Barsotti opened a graphic design studio, and these activities would have brought de Castro within the realm of the São Paulo concrete art (and poetry) groups. Subsequently, de Castro became a founding signatory of the 1959 Neoconcrete Manifesto in Rio de Janeiro, which formed as a reaction to the perceived orthodoxy of São Paulo concrete art and poetry. He was thus a complex character that cannot be easily framed within one particular genre or art movement, and his innovative contributions are broader than any individual association. His participation within the Neoconcrete group followed an educational trip to Europe in 1958, and his involvement to the movement would substantially further its theoretical engagement with phenomenology, being both highly significant and original. Although the Neoconcrete group, through their spokesman Ferreira Gullar, saw itself as further developing the legacy of European art concret, they rejected what they perceived to be the dogmatic rhetoric of the concrete art group in São Paulo that proposed mathematics as the basis for composition, whether in poetry or in other fields such as painting. As a signatory member of Neoconcretism, Willys de Castro exhibited in a series of shows that sought to firmly place the group within the cultural landscape across the country. These included exhibitions in Salvador, São Paulo, and Rio de Janeiro between 1959 and 1961. It was during this period that de Castro developed the notion of the active object, which questioned the two dimensional nature of the traditional canvas as the only possible support for painting. Here the materiality of the support was emphasised by the use of the actual side of the picture, as well as the positioning of other planes in varying angles with relation to the primary plane. For Ferreira Gullar, the active objects attempted to do away with the notion of a basic surface for painting by reducing the frontal plane of the work to merely a thread, that is to say, its own thickness. In this sense, the painting would continue around the perpendicular side of the support, a fact that the artist emphasised by inverting the colour of an element from the side of the plane to the plane itself. For Gullar, what made this operation interesting, in phenomenological terms, was the fact that it demonstrated, in painting’s own language, the conflict between the two-dimensional surface and real space in all its depth. The ground for the exploration of real space was thereby established, and it would lead to unexpected consequences. In this sense we find proximities, despite their distinct individual methods, between Willys de Castro’s work and other neoconcrete artists such as Hélio Oiticica Lygia Clark Amilcar de Castro, and Franz Weissmann whose work relied on being apprehended by spectators as they move across the gallery space. It was therefore only through time and movement in space that the work could be perceived in its entirety, even if only partially at a g
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
