Lygia Pape at the Met Breuer

EXHIBITIONS THE LOOKOUT

Lygia Pape

at the Met Breuer,

through Jul. 23

945 Madison Avenue

The title of Lygia Pape’s retrospective at the Met Breuer, “A Multitude of Forms,” is a bit dry but technically accurate, considering the endlessly experimental nature of the Brazilian modernist’s fifty-year career. The show includes many examples of woodcut prints and painted geometric wood constructions from the 1950s and ’60s, when Pape (1927–2004) aligned herself with the Concrete and, later, Neo-Concrete art movements in Rio de Janeiro. It also features interactive books and installations (such as bowls of flavored liquids that visitors can sample with tiny plastic droppers), experimental films, documentation of performances and ballets, and material related to her forays into architecture and anthropology. A highlight is Ttéia 1, C (1976–2004/2017)—in a darkened room, gold threads are pulled taut to form intersecting square columns. —Leigh Anne Miller

Pictured: Lygia Pape: Roda dos prazeres (Wheel of Pleasures), 1967, porcelain vessels, droppers, distilled water, flavorings, and food coloring. Courtesy the Met Breuer, New York. Photo Paula Pape.