Lygia Clark

After the talk with the second years it was suggested i take a look at the work of Helio Oiticica and Lygia Clark so I picked up a couple of books from the library. I particularly enjoyed the Lygia Clark, I really love her use of materials and the way she approached ideas. She made some beautiful drawings and fascinating sculptural pieces but I loved her performance pieces where she involved the audience. There are lots of these performances in the book under the chapter heading "The Phantasmagoria of the Body" which i think sounds wonderful. Found a lovely description of her work on line:

Communicating through experience, Clark emphasizes the fluidity of life in opposition to any attempt to fix and systematize the world. With this series of uncanny wearable creations made of cheap and ephemeral materials often found on the streets, work and body merge into a hybrid of geometric and organic forms. The participant wearing the Parangolé dances with it, exploring kinetically its multiple possibilities.

I really like the temporary nature of this work, i like the fact that the only people who properly get to experience the work are those who where there and took part at the time. The photographs and documentation of these performances just seems to be an after thought, most of them don't seem to be taken with aesthetics in mind or to be particularly bothered about it either.

One piece in particular which i like is Rede de elastico, it was again another audience involved performance piece. A net is made from these red elastic bands by many participants, to complete it they have to weave them together and in doing so begin to weave themselves, this then forms a collective body and the act of weaving the net becomes as important as using it afterwards.

Although I'm not interested in involving anyone else in what I want to make I love the shapes that are made by the participants when they move around underneath. So with this in mind what I've been thinking about is making myself a big bag. I'd quite like to make a really big fabric bag that I can move around inside of. It incorporates the public and private aspects I've become most interested in, as being in the bag would be very private experience but one that could be witnessed by an audience. I imagine the audience would never fully understand what was happening underneath the material and the person inside wouldn't be able to gauge any reaction or whether in fact there was an audience there at all? The idea of a barrier between the two aspects interests me to, because creating a barrier be it social or physical is a way to keep yourself safe.