Hélio Oiticica: Secret Poetics

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. 

Authors
Hélio Oiticica
Translated by Rebecca Kosick from Portuguese
Introduction by Rebecca Kosick
Afterword by Pedro Erber

Publishers
Soberscove Press

Publication Date
2023

Size
5.12 x 7.95 inches
120 pages

Binding
Paperback

ISBN
978-1-940190-32-7