Between 1964 and 1966, in the first years of Brazil’s military dictatorship, Hélio Oiticica wrote a series of lyrical poems, entitled Secret Poetics, and reflected in a private notebook on their significance for his artistic practice. Despite his global fame as a founder of the interdisciplinary movement known as neoconcretismo, his collaborations with major Brazilian artists and writers (Lygia Clark, Lygia Pape, Ferreira Gullar, etc.), and his influence across a range of disciplines (including painting, film, installation, and participatory art), Oiticica’s “secret” poems are almost unknown and have never been published as a collection. This edition, which features the original texts in facsimile reproductions along with English translations and accompanying essays by translator Rebecca Kosick and critic Pedro Erber, uncovers the significance of poetry to Oiticica’s thinking on participation, sensation, and memory.
ISBN: 978-1-940190-32-7
Dimensions: 5 x 7.95", 120 pages
Materials: Paperback
Soberscove Press
(Ukrainian Village)
Soberscove Press is an an independent press that publishes books about art and culture. Soberscove was founded by Julia Klein in 2009 with a focus on making art historical materials accessible to a non-specialist audience; this concern continues in the books we publish today. Soberscove books tend to explore modes and functions of documentation, process, and connect historical themes and issues to the present. We also produce books in collaboration with artists.