Lygia Clark showed an interest in drawing from an early age. In 1938, she moved with her husband, Aluízio Clark Ribeiro, to Rio de Janeiro. In 1947, she began her artistic training with Roberto Burle Marx (1909-1994). From 1950 to 1952, she lived in Paris, where she studied with Fernand Léger (1881-1955), Isaac Dobrinsky (1891-1973), and Árpád Szenes (1897-1985). After returning to Brazil, she joined the Grupo Frente, led by Ivan Serpa (1923-1973). She was one of the founders of the Grupo Neoconcreto, taking part in its first exhibition in 1959. Clark gradually moved from painting to experimenting with three-dimensional objects.
In the 1960s, she executed interactive works, such as the Bichos [Critters] series (1960), geometric metallic constructions that are articulated through folds and which require the co-participation of the spectator. By 1964, she had an exhibition at the Signals Gallery, in London, which would provide a platform for the internationalization of her work. By 1968, she dedicated her attention to sensory exploration in works such as A Casa é o Corpo [The House Is the Body]. Between 1970 and 1976, she lived in Paris, during which period she lectured at the Faculté d'Arts Plastiques St. Charles, at the Sorbonne, moving away from her production of aesthetic objects and above all, towards bodily experiences in which any kind of material established a relationship between the participants.
By 1972, she participated in the collective exhibition The Non-objective World 1935-1955, which traveled to London, Milan, and Basel. She returned to Brazil in 1976, devoting her attention to the therapeutic possibilities of sensory art and relational objects. In the 1970s and 1980s, Clark’s research in psychology and philosophy, prompted in part by her own experiences in psychotherapy, shifted her attempts at the unification of art and life. During the last decade of her life, Clark engaged in a therapeutic practice system called Estruturação do Self (1979–88).
Her work is part of important institutional collections in Brazil and around the world, such as the MAC/USP – Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo, MAM-SP – Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, MAM-RJ – Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, Centre Pompidou – Musée National d'Art Moderne (Paris), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid), Tate Modern (London) and MoMA – The Museum of Modern Art (New York).