Lygia Clark’s work encompasses pivotal transformations in the art of the second half of the 20th century. She was part of a generation responsible for expanding artistic languages, forging connections with socio-cultural issues and engaging the public in artistic experimentation. In addition to being one of the pioneers of geometric abstraction in Brazil, which would later give rise to the Neo-Concrete movement, Clark demonstrated, from the very beginning of her practice, a concern with painting as an object and with the relationship between artwork and real space. Gradually, her work moved from two-dimensional support to three-dimensional and process oriented experiments.   

Her training began in the late 1940s, when she studied painting with Roberto Burle Marx in Rio de Janeiro. In the early 1950s, she moved to Paris, where she studied oil painting under Árpád Szenes and Fernand Léger and held her first solo exhibition in the French capital (1952). Upon returning to Brazil, Clark engaged in an intense dialogue with artists transitioning toward geometric abstraction. During this time, she participated in exhibitions with the Grupo Frente and showed her work at the 27th Venice Biennale (1954). At the turn of the 1950s and 1960s, Clark began exploring the boundaries between the art object and space, as well as the relationship and between the work and the viewer, laying the foundation for a radical investigation that would define her later work.   

Among the numerous group exhibitions Lygia Clark took part in, highlights include the various editions of the Bienal de São Paulo (1957, 1961, 1963, 1967, 1973, 1979, 1994, 1998, 2006); and the Venice Biennale (1954, 1962, 1968, 2013), where she was given a special room to exhibit her work in 1968. Among her solo exhibitions, highlights include those held at Signals Gallery, London, UK (1965); MAM Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (1963 and 1968); Fundação Nacional de Arte (FUNARTE), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (1980); MAM São Paulo, Brazil (1999); Itaú Cultural, São Paulo, Brazil (2012); and Pinacoteca de São Paulo, Brazil (2024).     

Recently, Clark’s work has been the subject of retrospectives at Brazilian institutions such as Pinacoteca de São Paulo (2024), Itaú Cultural, São Paulo (2012), MAM São Paulo (1999); and international institutions such as MoMA (2014) and the Guggenheim (2020), New York, USA, in a process of increasing appreciation of her career, which goes hand in hand with the inclusion of her works in major collections, including Tate Modern, London, UK; MoMA, New York, USA; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain; Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; and Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, New York, USA/Caracas, Venezuela; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, USA. Her work is part of the collections of the main Brazilian institutions, including the Pinacoteca de São Paulo; MAM São Paulo; MAM Rio de Janeiro; Museu de Arte Contemporânea da USP, São Paulo; MASP, São Paulo.