BEACON, NY.- Dia Art Foundation is presenting a new exhibition of work by Hélio Oiticica illustrating the artist’s transition from the two-dimensional to the three-dimensional realm in the period between 1958 and ’66. The presentation will be on view until November 2026.

“Dia has long been devoted to artists who interrogate the relationships between material, space, and perception. Oiticica’s practice brings a vital perspective from Latin America, illustrating how these shared concerns manifested globally and shaped new forms of abstraction,” said Jessica Morgan, Dia’s Nathalie de Gunzburg Director.

Oiticica was a groundbreaking visual artist and theorist whose diverse practice spanned sculpture, drawing, painting, installation, and performance. His expansive body of work laid the foundations for participatory art, radically infusing abstraction with the sociopolitical discourse in Latin America and beyond. As a central figure in Brazil’s Neoconcrete and Tropicália movements, Oiticica’s innovative approach emphasized the importance of spatial awareness and embodied interaction.

The exhibition begins with two of Oiticica’s Metaesquemas paintings (Meta-Schemes, 1957–59), followed by two of his Relevos Espaciais (Spatial Reliefs, 1959). These series marked a major progression within the course of two years, from the artist’s exploration of the two-dimensional, monochromatic grid to his expansion into the gallery space with three-dimensional pieces in luminescent colors.

At the center of the exhibition is Grande Núcleo (Grand Nucleus, 1960–66), a large-scale installation that stands out as one of Oiticica’s most engaging environments. Further breaking with the two-dimensional boundaries of the earlier series represented at Dia Beacon, Grande Núcleo was created as a complex structure of rectangular panels painted in a vibrant spectrum, from bright yellow to deep orange, and arranged in a dynamic grid of varying angles and heights. Here, the viewer’s corporeal presence, movement, and perception of time and space become integral to the work, actively shaping the relational dynamics of its surroundings.

This selection on view explores Oiticica’s understanding of color, space, and form, progressing from exercises in geometric abstraction to objects and environments that invite viewer interaction.

“Hélio Oiticica foregrounded many important aspects of contemporary art, including the subjective experience of the body within varying environments and the role of social context. This exhibition focuses on Oiticica’s formative years (1958–66), a period in which his artistic investigations evolved from the flat picture plane to volumetric works, culminating in spatial experiences contingent on the viewer’s movement. The show furthers Dia’s mission to offer publics expanded geographical perspectives on key figures whose practices from the 1960s and ’70s generate dynamic dialogues with our history,” said Humberto Moro, Dia’s deputy director of program.

Hélio Oiticica is curated by Humberto Moro, deputy director of program, with Ella den Elzen, curatorial assistant.

Hélio Oiticica was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1937. In 1954, he enrolled at Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro and subsequently joined the Grupo Frente, a collective engaged in geometric abstraction. Through this affiliation, he developed relationships with like-minded artists and participated in the creation of the Neoconcrete movement, which advocated for a heightened sensorial experience of art. He worked as a painter before expanding his practice toward writing and participatory modalities, encompassing sculpture, immersive installation, and performance. Oiticica’s first retrospective, held at Whitechapel Gallery, London, in 1969, foregrounded the experimental and subversive nature of his practice, particularly through his interactive installation Tropicália (1967), which incorporated natural elements within the gallery space. Posthumous retrospectives of Oiticica’s work have been presented at the Witte de With (now Kunstinstituut Melly), Rotterdam (1992); the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (2006–07), touring to Tate Modern, London (2007); and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2017). Oiticica died in Rio in 1980.