Untitled, from the “Critters” series

At the end of the the nineteen-forties, Lygia Clark moved to Rio de Janeiro to study painting. At that time, the city had not become an avant-garde art hub yet. In fact, the very same Lygia Clark had a key role as an artist in such transformation. Coming from a wealthy family from the south of Brazil, after leaving her husband and father of her three children, Clark settled in the Carioca city and took painting lessons with Zélia Salgado and Burle Marx. Both of them were involved in geometry and cubism. At the beginning of the nineteen-fifties, she went on a trip to Europe with her children, where she delved into such aesthetic line and studied with Ferdinand Léger. In 1953, back in her country, Lygia was co-founder of Grupo Frente, with the participation of Ivan Serpa and Hélio Oiticica, among other remarkable artists who adhered to the ideas of renowned art critic Mário Pedrosa. A strong debate on figurative representation led Clark and many of them to producing abstract artworks, which gradually became less geometric and more subjective, and compelled them to ultimately abandon painting to devote to three-dimensional objects. “Bichos” are made up of metallic objects of a hard structure connected with hinges, which invite us to handle and alter them as we please.