artnexus #37

As part of the celebrations marking the 500th anniversary of the discovery of Brazil, an enormous art show has been organized in various exhibition spaces in São Paulo. It will subsequently travel to different cities in the country, before going on to a number of capitals in Europe and the Americas. Like any major event, the show has generated conflicting opinions. Some have focused on the criteria governing the selection of the more than 15,000 works illustrating the country's artistic past and present. Others have referred to the show's unusual museography, which was the work of architects and scenographers, who created spaces that tried to encourage a more active participation by the public—an option which nevertheless resulted in some questionable installations. 

Given the size of the event, the magazine selected the work of Ernesto Neto (1966) for the cover of this issue based on various criteria, and two aspects in particular: the undeniable quality and special place of his work in contemporary Brazilian art and the international projection in recent years of this artist who lives and works in Rio de Janeiro. Mention can be made in this context of his 1999 exhibition at the Contemporary Art Museum of Houston and of his shows at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in London and SITE Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 2000. For 2001, the show, titled Directions, is scheduled to be exhibited at the Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum in Washington. Recently, Neto received the Central Art Award of Kunstverein Cologne in Germany. He has consolidated his work since the beginning of the 1990s, exploring the use of various kinds of materials and undertaking sensory experiments involving the use of knowledge from the disciplines of science and anthropology. Neto's investigations reflect a tradition initiated by Brazilian art in the 1970s by artists who are also included in this exhibition.

IVONNE PINI