ALERT: The text below contains spoiler
“Adaptable Penetrable” project was born as a site-specific work entitled “Adapted Penetrable [or a garden for Hélio Oiticica]”, produced by Brazilian-Japanese visual artist Yukie Hori for “Art in Farm 2016”, an art event engaged in promoting the pride of Tachikawa city´s green areas since 2007.
The project sought to create a new landscape and new relations between an enigmatic and large concrete building located at the gardens of the Tokyo Metropolitan Agriculture and Forestry Research Center and the people who lived in it's surroundings by covering the concrete in waterproof nylon, following the same color scheme found in “Invenção da cor, Penetrável Magic Square #5 De luxe” (Color Invention, Penetrable Magic Square #5, De Luxe), an artwork by the renowned Brazilian artist, Hélio Oiticica (1937-1980). “Penetráveis” are a series of public art projects designed by Oiticica for open air spaces. The colors and external environment were physically experienced by allowing viewers to walk into it's structure.
As a temporary, removable and transportable work that still keeps the concrete building shapes, the covers launch to other places, following the ideas of "Parangolés". "Parangolés", also by Oiticica, are banners, covers or tents, made of fabric, plastic and other materials which should be dressed and incorporated by people while dancing to the rhythm of Samba.
Oiticica was interested in participatory and inclusive relations between artwork and audience, and the integration of Art and Life. By borrowing the Oiticica’s conceptions [and his revolutionary spirit], the covers were transformed into a "living monument", being incorporated by other places and assuming different situations, functions and relations with the viewers.
Later on, the covers were transformed into a scenography for the performance of Mitsudome tsugaru-jamisen group for the “Art in Farm 2018” edition.
In order to narrate the covers development from site-specific to a living monument, Hori, with the Argentinian filmmaker Dario Caamaño's collaboration, created “Adapted Penetrable: a film essay to Hélio Oiticica”, a hybrid between documentary and fiction, with 60's and 70's "Tropicália" vibes.
The colorful tales continue...
Yukie Hori