Hélio Oiticica, Metaesquema

Donna De Salvo: Metaesquemas are a group of works that Hélio Oiticica was experimenting with in which he would arrange various different colors and geometric shapes.

Narrator: Donna De Salvo is Deputy Director for International Initiatives and Senior Curator and one of the curators of this exhibition.

Donna De Salvo: The colors are incredibly vibrant. Some of the Metaesquemas have an incised line—a line that he drew into the support almost as if he were attempting to get to the other side of it. And it's part of Oiticica's formal investigation of space and form, and the limits of the two-dimensional surface. However, if one sees them through his later work, they almost function as a kind of blueprint or floor plan for some of the more participatory works, where there's a journey through.