Abstract

Between the 1960s and 1970s, Hélio Oiticica, Lygia Pape and Edgardo Antonio Vigo shared the idea that the audience should stop behaving as a passive spectator to become an active participant in the artistic process. In this case study, we will study how, with this aim in mind, these artists put into practice a series of participatory proposals −most of them in public spaces− which sought to establish a bond with the community. Therefore, these three artist’s artistic proposals involved bodily action, dancing, and intellectual and sensitive stimulus and exploration. Within the framework of both Brazilian and Argentinean dictatorships, as well as of the emergence of revolutionary actions and movements, they fostered an art democratizing ideal in their own way.