Lygia Pape
Divisor
septembersept 13 – 14
© Courtesy Projeto Lygia Pape ©
Pinault Collection and the Festival d'Automne à Paris present this project in partnership.
Manifestation organisée dans le cadre de la Saison Brésil-France 2025.
Lygia Pape, an emblematic figure of the Brazilian avant-garde, has made a lasting impact on the history of art with a body of work which, firmly rooted in social realities, combines performance, participation and sensory exploration. For the opening of the Festival d'Automne, one of her earliest collective experiences invites passers-by to plunge into the artist's audacious universe.
In 1968, Lygia Pape brought together around a hundred people from different neighbourhoods of Rio de Janeiro, ranging from children from the favelas to the middle classes, and gathered them under a huge twenty-by-twenty meters white sheet, pierced with holes through which only their heads emerged. This crowd of human beings, their heads separated from the rest of their bodies, was united by the same "garment", thereby doing away with all social hierarchy and class distinction. Conceived as a joyful, participatory work, which could be reproduced even in the absence of the artist, Divisor brings us a metaphor for the "social fabric" that is both lyrical and political. Devised in the context of a Brazil muzzled by the military dictatorship, this unclassifiable piece turns into a free-flowing procession. Bringing it back to life on the streets of Paris resonates with the Lygia Pape exhibition, presented at the Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection.