The Brazilian artist Lygia Pape (1927-2004) is now represented by Mendes Wood DM. Pape made pioneering contributions to Brazilian art over the course of her five-decade career. She was a central figure of the Concrete and Neo-Concrete art movements that emerged in the 1950s and continued to radically evolve her practice throughout her lifetime.
Pedro Mendes, who founded Mendes Wood DM with Felipe Dmab and Matthew Wood, tells The Art Newspaper that the gallery is “very connected to where Pape began her ideas”, and that Pape’s estate was drawn to working with a Brazilian gallery with an international reach, who could “represent Lygia from Brazil to the world”.
Mendes Wood DM—which operates spaces in São Paulo, Brussels, Paris and New York—will hold a career-spanning exhibition of Pape’s work in São Paulo in April 2026, coinciding with the SP-Arte fair and in anticipation of the artist’s centenary year, when various global institutions are expected to reflect on Pape’s career and influence. The gallery also plans to bring works to the forthcoming edition of Art Basel in Paris in October this year.
Pape studied philosophy and aesthetics at the Universidade do Brasil and conjunctly trained in visual arts through workshops in Rio de Janeiro, where she became involved with the burgeoning avant-garde circles in the city. She first gained recognition as a printmaker, creating abstract woodcuts.
Lygia Pape, Amazoninos Vermelhos [Red Amazoninos], at the 34th Bienal de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2021 Courtesy of Projeto Lygia Pape. Photo by Pedro Pape
Pape’s work was featured in the second Bienal de São Paulo in 1953. Throughout the 1950s, she expanded her practice through various experimental and collaborative projects. She formally co-founded the Neo-Concrete movement with the artists Lygia Clark, Hélio Oiticica, Franz Weissmann, Amílcar de Castro and Reynaldo Jardim in 1959 in Rio de Janeiro with the publication of the Manifesto Concreto. The movement emphasised a sensorial and organic art, emerging in response to the rigidity of the previously established Concrete movement, which was influenced by European Constructivism and geometric abstraction.
The public debut of the Neo-Concrete movement was held at the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro in the exhibition Exposição Neoconcreta I (1959). Pape presented her Tecelares (Weavings) series, prints incised on thin paper that create geometric patterns that suggest the interlacing of woven textiles and evoke Indigenous weaving traditions. In Exposição Neoconcreta II (1960), she exhibited the artist book Livro da Criação (Book of Creation), a work comprised of unbound cardboard pages unfolded into three-dimensional shapes that invite viewer participation and underscored the Neo-Concrete movement’s emphasis on interactive experiences.
Over the next decades, Pape continued to push boundaries, creating immersive environments, sculptures, prints, films, installations, artist books, paintings, sculptures and more. Throughout the country’s military dictatorship (1964-85), she created subtle works using subliminal language to address politics.
“She truly demonstrated that art’s role extends far beyond the gallery—it is meant to engage with society and contribute to its transformation,” Mendes says. “Her work was political, innovative and aesthetically refined. It’s an honour to celebrate her legacy because she represents an important lineage of Brazilian art that continues to inspire many artists.”
Lygia Pape, Ttéia 1,C, installation view of Icônes [Icons] at Pinault Collection, Punta della Dogana, Venice, 2023 Courtesy of Projeto Lygia Pape. Photo by Pedro Pape
Next week the Pinault Collection’s Bourse de Commerce in Paris will open Pape’s first retrospective in France, Tisser l'espace (Weaving Space) (10 September-23 February 2026). The show centres on Pape’s monumental installation Ttéia 1, C (2003/2025)—part of a celebrated series of geometric installations that Pape conceived in the late 1970s consisting of gold or silver threads and light intersecting in space. A version of Ttéia 1, C (2002) was exhibited in the main exhibition of the Venice Biennale in 2009.
Pape has previously had solo exhibitions at the Art Institute of Chicago in 2023, the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf in 2022, the Fondazione Carriero in Milan in 2019 and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2017. Her work is held in collections including the Museum of Modern Art, the Tate, the Centre Pompidou, Inhotim, the Glenstone Foundation and others.
White Cube will also continue to represent Pape’s estate, which is administered by Pape’s daughter, Paula Pape.
