Page 42 - Studio International - February 1967

Lygia Clark and spectator

participation

'The spectator should be projected into the work, actually to feel in his own person all the
spatial possibilities suggested.'

Cyril Barrett

Words have a nice way of slipping their moorings and
generating paradoxes. The word 'gentleman' once meant
someone who owned the land on which he lived. From
this it slipped to the kind of behaviour which was expected
of such a person, so that it was not a contradiction to say:
`That gentleman is no gentleman'. It is much the same
with the term 'kinetic art'. The word 'kinetic' suggests
movement, yet, on entering an exhibition of the works of
Lygia Clark, which are commonly described as 'kinetic',
one finds that absolutely nothing is moving. Movement is
not even suggested, as in a sporting print, nor is there an
impression of movement as in 'Op' art, nor a gradual un-
folding of a composition as in the work of Soto, Agam or
Cruz-Diez. The works are as static as any classical piece
of sculpture which can be viewed from many angles. And
they might remain so for ever if nobody touched them.
But that, of course, is the point: they are meant to be
touched, moved, manipulated.
Whether on this account they are entitled to be called
`kinetic' is unimportant. They have at least this in com-
mon with works which actually move: the work, the
composition, is not given all at once. Indeed one might
say that the objects one sees on entering the exhibition are
not the works proper. They are the materials out of which
Right and below, works by you are to make a work or the point or phase at which
Lygia Clark-hinged planes someone else's work stopped. They are like musical scores,
permit a new configuration
whenever the sculptures waiting to be played, or an orchestra waiting to play.
are moved Lygia Clark believes that she has carried the principle of
(Photo: Clay Perry)