Hélio Oiticica

Penetrável PN1, which Oiticica created in 1960, is a small corridor composed of bright yellow gliding panels which the spectators may move in order to activate the work. One of the largest penetrables, Penetrável Filtro, draws on the concepts on which Penetrável PN1 is based, using a larger scale and a labyrinthine structure. Penetrável Filtro allows visitors to wander along the corridors and between the curtains in several shades of green, blue, yellow and orange. Created on the year before the artist’s demise, Penetrável PN28 “Nas Quebradas” guides visitors across an architectonic structure made of wood, bricks and yellow panels with a jute roof. Oiticica draws inspiration from the favelas in Rio de Janeiro, and he succeeds in achieving one of his main goals: that of combining art and life, and providing “life experiences”.
Despite the fact that the Penetrables were created in the 1960s and 1970s, the participation of the public in the work through their physical experience endows these pieces with a long-standing validity.
Hélio Oiticica, one of the most influential 20th century artists, investigates color in space in a unique and continuous oeuvre. Not only are the Penetrables a natural progression in his work, but they also lend continuity to the history of art. In 1961, Oiticica wrote about the Penetrables: ”Here, color breaks away from the decorative and the architectonic…to become purely aesthetic, experienced (lived). These works are like human-scale mobile frescoes, and most importantly, they are penetrable. The structure of the work may be perceived only after the presentation of all the mobile parts, hidden from one another, for which reason it is impossible to see them all at the same time.”
The Penetrables function as transformation devices; they restate the symbolic and the aesthetic experience. They are installations built like labyrinths that seek to induce sensory experiences in those who walk through them, establishing an interactive relationship between the work and the public. This ceases to be an introverted reflective activity and becomes an articulation of bodies and materials. And it is the responsibility of the spectator, of the public, to articulate the artistic and the non-artistic elements presented by the artist. The public moves along edges, explores cavities, stairs, doors, and curtains, interconnecting spaces and discovering hidden spaces. As Mario Pedrosa writes in “Os Projetos de Helio Oiticica” (1961): “Emphasizing the itinerary, the Penetrables constitute an invitation to travel, without any romantic pathos, despite their unequivocal ethic resonance.”