Creatures of Ernesto Neto

In the end of 1950 the move­ment which con­tra­dicted ideas of geo­met­ric abstrac­tion of mod­ern­ism has begun. Members of this move­ment, on the con­trary, wanted to com­pare art with liv­ing organ­isms and express their ideas with flex­ible and liv­ing struc­tures. Works of Ernesto Neto are attrib­uted to organic archi­tec­ture. His abstract install­a­tions often take all the space; it invites spec­tat­ors to famil­i­ar­ize, to touch and even to smell these “creatures”.

These install­a­tions are large, soft and abstract. Viewer can touch it, some­times sit on it and walk through them, some­times even get lost in between this labyrinth. Author says that most vital organ of them all is skin. It is a bor­der between our inner and outer worlds. With the help of it we can exper­i­ence dif­fer­ent feel­ings – cold, heat, hard­ness, the touch of other body. The real­ness of these “creatures” is exper­i­enced exactly because of touch­ing. Just like real bio­lo­gical organ­ism it has insides and skin which sep­ar­ates it from the external world.

- Do you have a dream, an ideal place, where you would like your creatures to live?

- In the cave! I like to think that the body is con­struc­tion of archi­tec­ture and land­scape, too”

Ernesto Neto says that space is extremely import­ant for his cre­at­ive works. If he doesn’t like space in which he has to cre­ate, he declines whole pro­ject. The main things in his work are har­mony between weigh and light­ness, bal­ance and dynamic, trans­par­ency and opa­city, interior and exter­ior, phys­ical and philo­soph­ical worlds. Combining these ele­ments he expresses his view on what our world should be like.

I think that my work is a dance, and I believe, that our soci­ety as a sculp­ture takes shape of a dance. Dance is a sym­bol of our day to day rela­tion­ship. Inside these struc­tures there are mean­ings and ideas, but its sur­face reflects dance and music. Sometimes I say what I wanted to express, but more often I leave space for the spectator’s inter­pret­a­tion, – says Ernesto Neto

Ernesto is from Brazil. He points out, that his homet­own Rio de Janeiro gave him inspir­a­tion for his works. In 1970-​s whole city was one gigantic con­struc­tion site. Son of engin­eer says that even today the smell and sound of con­struc­tion carry him to his child­hood memor­ies. Even though artist travels a lot, he always spends New Years Eve in his homet­own with his friends and neigh­bors. Friendship, har­mony and healthy rela­tion­ships are most import­ant in his life. Likewise in his shows and exhib­i­tions he tries to cre­ate a space, where people could inter­act, laugh and feel comfortable.

About author:

Gintarė Žitkevičiūtė
Gintare Zitkeviciute is Art Pit’s thinker and doer. In her work practise, she values lean approach, creativity and quick decisions. She doesn't like working with random people and thinks that a team is a heart of successful project. For that reason, she carefully picks people she works with on everyday basis. She is mostly interested in innovatio... Read further >