Ernesto Neto

ernesto neto is considered one of the absolute
leaders of brazil’s contemporary art scene.
his inspiration comes partly from brazilian
neo-concretism. at the end of the 1950s and
beginning of the 60s the movement’s best-known
proponents, lygia clarc and hélio oiticica,
rejected modernism’s ideas of autonomous
geometric abstraction. instead, they wanted to
equate art with living organisms in a kind of
organic architecture, and invite the viewer to be
an active participant.

ernesto neto works with abstract installations
which often take up the entire exhibition space.
his materials are gossamer-thin, light,
stretchable fabrics in nylon or cotton. like fine
membranes fixed to the ceiling by long,
stretched threads his works hang down into
the room and create shapes that are almost
organic. sometimes they are filled with scented
spices and hang in tear-shaped forms like
gigantic mushrooms or huge stockings,
sometimes he creates peculiar soft sculptures
which the visitor is allowed to feel through
small openings in the surface. he also creates
spatial labyrinths which the visitor can enter
and thereby experience the work and interact
with it.

neto’s art is an experience which creates
associations with the body and with something
organic. he describes his works as an
exploration and a representation of the body’s
landscape from within. it is important to neto
that the viewer should actively interact with
and physically experience his work by feeling,
smelling, and touching it.



db online art magazine article on neto....http://www.deutsche-bank-kunst.com/art/2004/7/e/1/268.php