Rediscovering Interdisciplinarity in Contemporary Brazilian Art: The Work of Willys de Castro

The Active Objects series is the contribution of Brazilian artist and poet Willys de Castro (1926-1988) to Neoconcretism, which was an avant-garde movement in Rio de Janeiro from 1959 to the mid-1960s that changed the parameters of Brazilian art definitively. A typical Active Object is composed of a wooden structure covered with painted canvas that is hung on the wall like a regular painting - but the evident tri-dimensionality of the object purposefully contrasts with the flatness of its frontal surface. Thus the artist addressed the potential conflict between sculpture and painting to the benefit of a fruitful interdisciplinary practice. The reception of these works, however, is still based on Ferreira Gullar's formalist writings of the late 1950s, and does not consider Castro's poetic production, which informed the series. Based on poststructuralist theory, the article analyses his works in an attempt to understand their complex regimes of signification.