A prime force shaping Brazil’s cultural scene in the 1960s and 70s, Oiticica was a member of the Neo-Concretist movement in Brazil, a group of artists and poets who wanted to move art off the canvas into the realm of life. By the mid-60s, Oiticica had abandoned traditional painting and sculpture in favor of freeform constructions ("parangolés"), such as banners and capes meant to be worn or inhabited. He started his involvement with cinema around this time, acting in the groundbreaking movie Câncer by Brazilian filmmaker Glauber Rocha.

In the 1970s, after receiving a Guggenheim grant and moving to New York, Oiticica developed the idea of his quasi-cinemas to investigate his interests in the moving image. In these participatory installations, slide projections on walls, floors, and/or ceilings combine with music and environmental components. The Wexner Center presents a selection of these works, including Neyrótika, with a series of slides taken by Oiticica in his loft in New York City, and three of the Block-Experiments in Cosmococa developed by Oiticica and Brazilian filmmaker Neville D’Almeida. The Cosmococas on view are CC1 Trashiscapes, CC3 Maileryn, and CC5 Hendrix-War. Also featured in the exhibition is Oiticica’s only film, Agripina é Roma-Manhattan, an unfinished work shown here for the first time in the United States.