Lygia Pimentel Lins (23 October 1920 – 25 April 1988), better known as Lygia Clark, was a Brazilian artist best known for her painting and installation work. She was often associated with the Brazilian Constructivist movements of the mid-20th century and the Tropicalia movement. Along with Brazilian artists Amilcar de Castro, Franz Weissmann, Lygia Pape and poet Ferreira Gullar, Clark co-founded the Neo-Concrete movement. From 1960 on, Clark discovered ways for viewers (who would later be referred to as "participants") to interact with her art works. Clark's work dealt with the relationship between inside and outside, and, ultimately, between self and world. Life Clark was born in 1920 in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. In 1938, she married Aluízio Clark Riberio, a civil engineer, and moved to Rio de Janeiro, where she gave birth to three children between 1941-45. In 1947, she studied painting with Brazilian landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx and became an artist. Between 1950 and 1952, she studied with Isaac Dobrinsky, Fernand Léger and Arpad Szenes in Paris. In 1953, she became one of the founding members of Rio's Frente group of artists. In 1957, Clark participated in Rio de Janeiro's first National Concrete Art Exhibition. Clark soon became a prime figure among the Neo-concretists, whose 1959 manifesto called for abstract art to be more subjective and less rational and idealist. In 1960 she began to make her famous Bichos (Critters), hinged objects that could take many shapes and were meant to be physically manipulated by the viewer in 1964 she began developing "propositions" anyone could enact using everyday materials like paper, plastic bags, and elastic. After 1966, Clark claimed to have abandoned art. During Brazil's military dictatorship, Clark self-exiled to Paris, where in the 1970s she taught art classes at the Sorbonne. During this time, Clark also explored the idea of sensory perception through her art. Her art became a multi-sensory experience in which the spectator became an active participant. Between 1979 and 1988, Clark moved toward art therapy, using her objects in interactive sessions with patients. In 1977, Clark returned to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and she died of a heart attack in her home in 1988. Influences Clark's early works were influenced by the Constructivist movement and other forms of European geometric abstraction, including the work of Max Bill, though she soon departed from the detached rationalism of much abstract art. Clark's early work reflected her