Cosmococas 1-5

When Hélio Oiticica was living in New York, in the early 1970s, the artist worked in partnership with filmmaker Neville D’Almeida on the creation of pioneering installations called Cosmococas [Programa in Progress, Quasi-Cinema]. Defined at that time as “spatial interventions,” the works constitute sensorial environments with slide projections, soundtracks and various tactile elements. The Cosmococas dialog directly with the idea of “quasi-cinema,” which aimed to investigate the public’s relation with the image-spectacle, stimulating creative freedom. The works presented here were entitled by the artists Blocos-Experiências em Cosmococa [Block Experiments in Cosmococa], a program in progress that is only completed with the presence of members of the public – who are not called spectators, but “participants.” The projected slides are based on drawings using light, shadows and cocaine, which the artists transformed into a white pigment applied to book images, album covers, photos and newspapers featuring personalities like Jimi Hendrix, Luis Buñuel, Yoko Ono, Luis Fernando Guimarães, Marilyn Monroe, John Cage, and others. In this gallery, designed to permanently house the five Cosmococas - Trashiscapes, Onobject, Maileryn, Nocagions and Hendrix-War – the visitor is invited to experience these works, recognized as landmarks in the recent history of contemporary art and as symbols of transgression in the realms of poetics and language.