Metaesquema, metaform, metawork

Abstract

The text analyzes Hélio Oiticica’s work called Metaesquema, that belongs to the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo’s collection, Brazil. Using Oiticica’s texts about his own series and working with the notions of schema and form, we could notice how the artist’s artwork is an experiment that follows and at the same time criticizes principles of Concretism, presenting some elements that would emerge later in the Neoconcretist movement. Then, exploring the metaphorical condition of the artwork, which refers to the city, the body and the dance, thus connecting it, as a metonymy, to another Oiticica’s series. Finally, in dialogue with the recent bibliography on the Metaesquemas, the text highlights the ambiguity of the work in focus, both the specific Metaesquema and the work of Oiticica.