Décio Noviello Brazilian, 1929-2019

Decio Noviello, began his creative life in the 1960s as a costume designer and a scenographer at carnival parades. Today he is a historically renowned name in the Brazilian visual artworld who heavily featured in the Sao Paulo International Biennials of the late 60s early 70s. Noviello was also a key player among the artists included the landmark show Do corpo à terra (From the Body to the Earth) which took place during the inauguration of the Palácio das Artes, in April 1970. Showcasing the ‘Neo-Vanguard Brazilian’, this exhibition is now considered a milestone in the investigations concerning the environmental and experimentalist art of the avant-garde movement in Brazil.

Experimenting with methods unusual to the time, Noviello organised ‘happenings’ where he would use heavily pigmented smoke pyrotechnics to send out colours into the air. Known today as ‘Expanded field painting’ Noviello pushed boundaries in this gesture of expanding the technique of painting.