Of all of Lygia Pape’s works, those that best synthesize her artistic process are her Ttéias. Constructed by the geometric installation of silver or gold threads, they delineate volumes and achieve visually powerful effects, charging the space with a sense of the indefinable, the immaterial. The groups of thread are also staggered, intersecting or merely appearing to intersect, a blend of the real and the imaginary. The word ‘ttéia,’ which Pape coined, is an elision of the Portuguese word for ‘web’ and ‘teteia,’ a colloquial word for a graceful and delicate person or thing. In 1978, Pape began to experiment with a group of her students, tying strings around trees and weaving them through the natural environment of the Parque Lage Gardens in Rio de Janeiro. These experiments mark the beginning of the Ttéias that continue to demonstrate Pape’s enduring interest in spatial investigations.
