In the mid-1960s, the Brazilian artist Hélio Oiticica [1937-1980] began embracing joyously transgressive modes of performance, film, and installation to champion marginalized persons and their culture. Made in collaboration with the Brazilian filmmaker Neville D’Almeida [b.1941] while Oiticica was self-exiled to New York during the 1970s, the original installation series of five Bloco-Experiências in Cosmococa–Programa in Progress [Block Experiments in Cosmococa–Program in Progress, 1973], or Cosmococas, operate on many levels to transform pop and underground culture into an explosive supra-sensorial experience. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Cosmococas, the artist’s nonprofit foundation, the Projeto Hélio Oiticica, has organized a year-long celebration for 2023, during which the series has been installed in cities around the world.
As a public institution aligned with Oiticica’s egalitarian values, the Hunter College Art Galleries have joined the 50th anniversary initiative and is presenting the exhibition Cosmic Shelter: Hélio Oiticica and Neville D’Almeida’s Private Cosmococas at the Leubsdorf Gallery until March 30, 2024.
“Curated by Daniela Mayer, a New York based Brazilian-American researcher, educator, and curator focused on transnational artist networks across the Americas. The exhibition was developed in conjunction with a two-semester independent study by Hunter College MA Art History students Thais Bignardi, Rowan Diaz-Toth, and Angelica Pomar. Support for this exhibition is provided by the Hunter College Foundation with additional support from Lisson Gallery, Leon Tovar Gallery, and Sokoloff + Associates.”
Seeking to expand the viewership of their work beyond typical art-world audiences, Oiticica and D’Almeida created two sets of instructions for each Cosmococa—public and private—with the latter grouping only exhibited since 2018.
Cosmic Shelter presents the United States premiere of two private Cosmococas, CC2 Onobject and CC3 Maileryn. The CC2 includes Yoko Ono’s Plastic Ono Band music and slideshows of her book Grapefruit projected onto four surrounding walls and across furniture draped in white sheets to create a fully immersive environment. The CC3 features two projected slideshows of images manipulating Marilyn Monroe’s face, the mambo stylings of Peruvian singer Yma Sumac, and shallow basins of water for guests to contemplatively step in.
The exhibition also includes archival materials, such as facsimiles of Oiticica’s notebooks and photographs taken in Oiticica’s downtown lofts, to provide historical context for the layers of political commentary imbued into the subversive, psychedelic series of Cosmococas.
The themes raised in the exhibition Cosmic Shelter resonate with HCAG’s mission to act as a site for collaborative and experimental engagement with art and pedagogy while exploring the questions about arts access and the history of Latinx artists in New York.
“Running throughout the exhibition, Programming-in-Progress is a complementary series of free public programs that includes exhibition tours, film screenings of Brazilian cinema, and in-gallery artist performances.”
Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Gallery
132 East 68th St
New York, NY 10065
Entrance on the south side of 68th Street between Lexington Avenue and Park Avenue, near Lexington
Gallery Hours:
Wednesday–Saturday, 12–6pm
More info: www.leubsdorfgallery.org