Willys de Castro

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Willys de Castro
Willys de Castro em frente a pinturas, na exposicao do VI Salao de Arte Moderna de 1957.png
Willys de Castro in front of two of his paintings at the VI National Salon of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1957.
Born(1926-02-16)February 16, 1926
Uberlândia, Minas Gerais, Brazil
DiedJune 5, 1988(1988-06-05) (aged 62)
São Paulo, Brazil
Nationality Brazilian
Other namesSouza Castro
Occupation Visual artist
Poet
Graphic designer
Industrial designer
Stage designer
Magazine editor
Years active1950-1988
Known for Neo-Concrete Movement
Partner(s) Hércules Barsotti

Willys de Castro (February 16, 1926 – June 5, 1988) was a Brazilian visual artist, poet, graphic designer, industrial designer, stage designer and magazine editor. [1] [2] [3] De Castro is best known for his "Active object" series and is considered to be a pioneer and founding contributor of the Neo-Concrete Movement. [4] [5]

The Neo-Concrete Movement (1959–61) was a Brazilian art movement, which developed from Rio de Janeiro’s Grupo Frente, a coalition of artists working in Concrete Art. Neoconcrete artists rejected the pure rationalist approach of concrete art and embraced a more phenomenological and less scientific art. Ferreira Gullar inspired Neo-Concrete philosophy through his essay “Theory of the Non-Object” (1959) and wrote the “Neo-Concrete Manifesto” (1959) which outlines what Neo-Concrete art should be. Lygia Clark, Hélio Oiticica, and Lygia Pape were among the primary leaders of this movement.

Contents

Early life and education

De Castro was born in Uberlândia, Minas Gerais, Brazil. He was the second of six children born to Henrique de Castro and Cacilda de Souza Castro. [1] :198 [3] His father was a businessman who owned a gas station, a used car dealership, and a perfumery in Uberlândia. [6]

Uberlândia Municipality in Southeast, Brazil

Uberlândia is a municipality in the state of Minas Gerais, southeastern Brazil. It is the second largest municipality in the state of Minas Gerais after the state capital Belo Horizonte. Its population is 669,672 and is the fourth largest city of the interior region of Brazil. Uberlândia sits on the Brazilian Highlands 2,802 feet (854 m) above sea level. Uberlândia is a logistics hub due to its location between São Paulo and Brasília and as part of the Triângulo Mineiro. The city sits within the Brazilian cerrado and has eight protected zones of tropical savanna vegetation.

Minas Gerais State of Brazil

Minas Gerais is a state in the north of Southeastern Brazil. It ranks as the second most populous, the third by gross domestic product (GDP), and the fourth largest by area in the country. The state's capital and largest city, Belo Horizonte, is a major urban and finance center in Latin America, and the sixth largest municipality in Brazil, after the cities of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Brasilia and Fortaleza, but its metropolitan area is the third largest in Brazil with just over 5,500,000 inhabitants, after those of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Nine Brazilian presidents were born in Minas Gerais, the most of any state.

Brazil Federal republic in South America

Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At 8.5 million square kilometers and with over 208 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area and the fifth most populous. Its capital is Brasília, and its most populated city is São Paulo. The federation is composed of the union of the 26 states, the Federal District, and the 5,570 municipalities. It is the largest country to have Portuguese as an official language and the only one in the Americas; it is also one of the most multicultural and ethnically diverse nations, due to over a century of mass immigration from around the world.

De Castro began to show an interest in the arts at a very early age and began to study the piano at the age of four. In the mid 1930s de Castro's family relocated from Uberlândia to Campinas, São Paulo after a fire destroyed the family perfumery. In Campinas de Castro studied music with Salvador Bove. During this time he also studied drawing under André Fort. [3] [6]

Campinas Municipality in Southeast, Brazil

Campinas is a Brazilian municipality in São Paulo State, part of the country's Southeast Region. According to the 2010 Census, the city's population is 1,080,999, making it the fourteenth most populous Brazilian city and the third most populous municipality in São Paulo state. The city's metropolitan area, Metropolitan Region of Campinas, contains twenty municipalities with a total population of 3,656,363 people.

São Paulo (state) State of Brazil

São Paulo is one of the 26 states of the Federative Republic of Brazil and is named after Saint Paul of Tarsus. As the richest Brazilian state and a major industrial complex, often dubbed the "locomotive of Brazil", the state is responsible for 33.9% of the Brazilian GDP. São Paulo also has the second highest Human Development Index (HDI) and GDP per capita, the fourth lowest infant mortality rate, the third highest life expectancy, and the third lowest rate of illiteracy among the federative units of Brazil, being by far, the safest state in the country. The homicide rate is 3.8 per 100 thousand as of 2018, almost 1/4 of the Brazilian rate. São Paulo alone is richer than Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia combined. If São Paulo were an independent country, its nominal GDP would be ranked among the top 20 in the world. The economy of São Paulo State is the most developed in Brazil.

In 1941, when he was fifteen years old, de Castro moved to São Paulo to study Chemistry and Industrial design. From 1944 to 1945, he worked as a technical draftsman. [7] In 1948, de Castro received a degree in Industrial Chemistry. [1] For a brief period upon graduation de Castro worked as an industrial chemist for Esso but left his position to pursue his artistic interests. [3]

Chemistry is the scientific discipline involved with elements and compounds composed of atoms, molecules and ions: their composition, structure, properties, behavior and the changes they undergo during a reaction with other substances.

Esso oil and gas company

Esso is a trading name for ExxonMobil and its related companies. The company began as Standard Oil of New Jersey following the breakup of Standard Oil. In 1972, the name was largely replaced in the U.S. by the Exxon brand after the company bought Humble Oil, while the Esso name remained widely used elsewhere.

Career

After leaving Esso to focus on music and graphic arts de Castro began to study dodecaphonic music with Hans-Joachim Koellreutter. De Castro created his first geometric abstract drawings in 1950 and for the rest of the first half of the 1950s continued to create paintings and textiles inspired by abstract art. [8] :246 [9] During this time de Castro signed his music compositions and graphic artworks using the pseudonym "Souza Castro." [3]

Twelve-tone technique method of musical composition devised by Arnold Schönberg to ensure that all 12 notes of the chromatic scale are equally often, so that the music avoids being in a key

The twelve-tone technique—also known as dodecaphony, twelve-tone serialism, and twelve-note composition—is a method of musical composition first devised by Austrian composer Josef Matthias Hauer, who published his "law of the twelve tones" in 1919. In 1923, Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) developed his own, better-known version of 12-tone technique, which became associated with the "Second Viennese School" composers, who were the primary users of the technique in the first decades of its existence. The technique is a means of ensuring that all 12 notes of the chromatic scale are sounded as often as one another in a piece of music while preventing the emphasis of any one note through the use of tone rows, orderings of the 12 pitch classes. All 12 notes are thus given more or less equal importance, and the music avoids being in a key. Over time, the technique increased greatly in popularity and eventually became widely influential on 20th-century composers. Many important composers who had originally not subscribed to or even actively opposed the technique, such as Aaron Copland and Igor Stravinsky, eventually adopted it in their music.

Hans-Joachim Koellreutter German composer

Hans-Joachim Koellreutter was a Brazilian composer, teacher and musicologist.

Geometric abstraction

Geometric abstraction is a form of abstract art based on the use of geometric forms sometimes, though not always, placed in non-illusionistic space and combined into non-objective (non-representational) compositions. Although the genre was popularized by avant-garde artists in the early twentieth century, similar motifs have been used in art since ancient times.

In 1952 de Castro began to work at the Alfredo Mesquita School of Dramatic Arts where he served as composer, singer, poet, and graphic designer. That same year some of de Castro's original musical compositions were performed at the Institute Caetano de Campos. The following year he composed the musical score for "The Clerk," a mimodrama produced by the students of the Alfredo Mesquita School of Dramatic Arts. [3] That same year de Castro created his first concrete art works. [8] :246

In 1954 together with his life partner and fellow artist Hércules Barsotti, de Castro founded Estúdio de Projectos Gráficos, an advertising design consultancy. [9] [10] [11] While working at Estúdio de Projectos Gráficos, which operated until 1964, de Castro focused on graphic design as well as object design. [12]

In 1954 de Castro was a founding member of the Brazilian musical group "Ars Nova." Under the direction of Diogo Pacheco Ars Nova focused on circulating obscure medieval and contemporary musical compositions. De Castro sang baritone and acted as the graphic designer for the group. [7] [3] During this time de Castro began creating concrete poetry and in 1955 published a book of his concrete poems. [3]

De Castro was designer and director of the Brazilian theater magazine "Teatro brasileiro." [8] [12]

De Castro curated several group exhibitions and solo exhibitions including a retrospective of Aldo Bonadei's work at the São Paulo Museum of Modern Art in 1955. [3]

De Castro was honored in 1957 by the Associação Paulista de Críticos de Arte for his scenography and costume design work at the Artistic Culture Theater. [3]

Upon his return from studying in Europe for one year (1958-1959), de Castro joined the Neo-Concrete Movement in Rio de Janeiro along with Lygia Clark, Hélio Oiticica, Franz Weissmann, Lygia Pape and others. [4] :161 The following year de Castro participated in "Konkrete Kunst" an exhibit organized in Zurich by Max Bill. [1]

From 1959 to 1962, de Castro developed his "Active object" series. [1]

In 1963 together with Hércules Barsotti, Lothar Charoux, Waldemar Cordeiro, Luiz Sacilotto among others, De Castro became one of the founders of the São Paulo based art gallery Associação de Artes Visuais Novas Tendências which operated until 1965. Associação de Artes Visuais Novas Tendências was founded and managed by artists working within the Concrete and Neo-Concrete movements but did not solely feature Concrete and Neo-Concrete art. The galleries goal was to provide a space and platform for contemporary art to be presented outside the confines of any particular artistic movement. [4] [13]

De Castro is also noted for his series of works titled "Pluriobjetos" which he began in 1970. De Castro's "Pluriobjetos" were first exhibited in 1983 at Gabinete de Artes Gráficas Raquel Arnaud Babenco in São Paulo. [12] [14]

Selected exhibitions

Solo exhibitions
Group exhibitions

Selected works

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Jiménez, Ariel; Herkenhoff, Paulo (2010). Desenhar no Espaço: Artistas Abstratos do Brasil e da Venezuela na Coleção Patricia Phelps de Cisneros (Exhibition catalog) (in Portuguese, English, and Spanish). Porto Alegre, Brazil: Fundação Iberê Camargo. ISBN   978-85-89680-16-5. OCLC   722764644.
  2. ↑ Chaundy, Bob (17 October 2016). "Willys de Castro: From Paintings To Objects 1953-61". HuffPost .
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Mattar, Denise. "Willys de Castro Multipla Síntese" (PDF). Gallery Almeida e Dale.
  4. 1 2 3 Pérez-Barreiro, Gabriel (exhibition curator); Locke, Adrian (exhibition curator); Lea, Sarah (exhibition curator); García, María Amalia; Whitelegg, Isobel (2014). Radical Geometry: Modern Art of South America from the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection. London: Royal Academy of Arts. ISBN   978-1-907-53369-3. OCLC   889949567.
  5. ↑ Garcia, Cynthia (6 February 2017). "Neoconcrete Raconteur". Newcity Brazil.
  6. 1 2 Mota, Núbia (21 April 2013). "Conheça a história do artista Willys de Castro, filho ilustre de Uberlândia" (in Portuguese). Correio de Uberlândia.
  7. 1 2 Lúcia Teixeira, Vera. "Willys de Castro". Dicionário de Artístas do Brazil.
  8. 1 2 3 Bois, Yve-Alain (2001). Geometric Abstraction: Latin American Art from the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection = Abstracción Geométrica: Arte Latinoamericano en la Coloección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros (Exhibition catalog) (in English and Spanish). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. ISBN   978-0-300-08990-5. OCLC   298342818.
  9. 1 2 Suárez, Osbel (exhibition concept and guest curator); García, María Amalia; Agnew, Michael (translations) (2011). Witschey, Erica; Fundación Juan March, eds. Cold America: Geometric Abstraction in Latin América (1934–1973) (Exhibition catalog). Madrid: Fundación Juan March. ISBN   978-84-7075-588-0. OCLC   707460289.
  10. ↑ Friedman, Samantha (23 November 2016). "Willys de Castro's Active Object (Yellow)". Museum of Modern Art .
  11. ↑ Cherix, Christophe (5 April 2017). "Hércules Barsotti's Ink Drawings". Museum of Modern Art .
  12. 1 2 3 Jiménez, Ariel (2003). GEO-METRÍAS. Abstracción Geométrica Latinoamericana en la Colección Cisneros (MALBA) (Exhibition catalog) (in Spanish and English). Caracas: Fundación Cisneros. ISBN   978-9-879-76774-0. OCLC   52823665.
  13. ↑ Conduru, Roberto (2005). Willys de Castro. São Paulo, SP: Cosac & Naify. ISBN   9788575034033.
  14. ↑ Arnaud, Raquel; Naves, Rodrigo (2005). Raquel Arnaud e o olhar contemporâneo. São Paulo, SP: Cosac & Naify. ISBN   978-8575034408.

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