Hélio Oiticica’s first European outdoor installation arrives at Goodwood Art Foundation
The Brazilian artist’s vividly coloured labyrinth is the first outdoor installation of his work to be shown in Europe, bringing a landmark of 20th-century art to the West Sussex landscape.
A 15-metre-square labyrinth of brightly painted walls now stands among the woodland at Goodwood Art Foundation. It is the first outdoor installation by Brazilian artist Hélio Oiticica to be shown in Europe.
Magic Square #3 (1978/2026) is designed to be entered rather than simply looked at. Made from painted cement walls, brick, metal, glass and marble chips, the structure occupies a 15 x 15 x 5-metre footprint on the edge of the Foundation’s woodland, with views towards the Sussex coast.
The colours change as visitors move through the structure and as the natural light shifts around it. The work is on long-term loan to Goodwood Art Foundation and has been constructed according to Oiticica’s instructions.
There is an unusual history behind its arrival. Oiticica died in 1980, aged 42, without seeing a Magic Square realised. The series was developed between 1977 and 1979, towards the end of an artistic career increasingly concerned with what happened when colour and geometric form moved beyond the canvas and into the viewer’s physical surroundings.
Step inside the Magic Square
Oiticica was one of the leading figures of Brazilian Neo-Concretism, a movement that emerged in the late 1950s and challenged the detached, purely formal approach associated with European geometric abstraction.
His answer was increasingly physical. Rather than asking people to stand in front of an artwork, he made works that encouraged them to move around, touch and occupy them.
That idea runs through the Magic Square series. Its brightly coloured walls form a kind of open-air architecture, with passages, openings and changing views. The composition is experienced through movement: there is no single position from which to take it all in.
The approach developed across several of Oiticica’s best-known bodies of work. His Parangolés, for example, were wearable works that came alive through movement, while his Núcleos used geometric panels to create changing experiences of colour.
His Tropicália (1966–67) became one of the defining works associated with Brazil’s Tropicalismo movement, which brought together visual art, music and ideas about Brazilian identity.
For Goodwood Art Foundation, the installation also marks an important step in its relatively young programme. The not-for-profit contemporary art destination opened in May 2025 and has built its programme around the relationship between art, landscape and learning.
“Magic Square #3” is the latest addition to its summer programme, which runs until 1 November and includes more than 50 works across the galleries, restaurant and grounds.
Goodwood Art Foundation, New Barn Hill, Goodwood, Chichester, PO18 0QP
Summer season opening Hours: Thursday – Monday, 9am – 5pm
Tickets £15, under 18s go free
Other concessions available
Elena Leo is the Culture & Lifestyle Editor of Ikon London Magazine.
