True colours

Exhibition; Hélio Oiticica: The Body of Colour

How diminished our lives would be if suddenly we could only see in black and white. ‘Colour is the first revelation of the world,’ exclaimed Hélio Oiticica (1937–80), a Brazilian artist with a mission to liberate colour and help it to embody itself in other guises. He thought of colour as a dimension, like space or time. How far would he have travelled if his tragic early death had not stopped short his career? He had already gone beyond helping colour to escape from the imprisoning rectangle of the picture frame and move into three-dimensions; he had even given it human locomotion and brought it into the arena of performance. Where would he have taken it next? A film at the end of this intriguing exhibition charts the path of increasing frenzy in Oiticica’s work. Perhaps he had literally gone as far as he could.