Lygia Clark at Neue Nationalgalerie
Ela Bittencourt, Spike Art
July 2025
‘Kinky may not be the first word that comes to mind when describing the art of Lygia Clark (1920–88), the latest subject in the Neue Nationalgalerie’s recent efforts to address its historical under-representation of women artists, which saw retrospectives of Yoko Ono, Nan Goldin, and Isa Genzken (as well as the first Brazilian honored here by a major retrospective). While Clark’s elegant black-and-white portraits don’t promise titillation, nor do the first few galleries tracing her early, tonally subdued Constructivist paintings and interactive sculptures, a corporeal and psychic boldness emerges in her performance works – an eerily canny mirror for a city with such a vibrant sex-club scene.’ […]