Ernesto Neto, Between Earth and Sky (Installation View), all images via Art Observed
Since the 1990s, Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto has created a distinct body of work that marks both an ongoing formal inquiry into space, volume, balance, and a deep engagement with sensuality, energy, and spirituality., all while elaborating on the neo-concrete and the history of Brazilian modernism. Incorporating organic shapes and materials that engage all five senses, his work draws on the history of Brazilian art and a close interaction with natural forms to create otherworldly and communally-experienced objects and spaces.
Ernesto Neto, Between Earth and Sky (Installation View)
On view at Tanya Bonakdar gallery this month in New York, earthtreelifelove in the downstairs gallery presents a fitting expression of this ongoing exploration of the relationship between humans and the environment as inseparable entities. The cotton crochet carpet is made with spiral formations that represent the earth and the ocean, and the top of the sculpture represents the sky and leaves falling from a tree, highlighting the cycle of nature. Viewers are able to take off their shoes, lie down on the carpet and gaze up to experience a moment of meditation and contemplate their connection with the natural world. In Steps and Leaves, over 520 knotted cotton formations are attached directly to the surrounding walls in the main gallery, representing human steps moving through the earth. Combining his signature biomorphic shapes, and using weight and gravity to dictate form, Neto creates an alluring environment of color, texture, and smell that collapses the distance between viewer and artwork, and human and nature.
Ernesto Neto, Between Earth and Sky (Installation View)
Ernesto Neto, Between Earth and Sky (Installation View)
On the second floor, Ernesto Neto has created a sculptural garden beneath the skylight that is comprised of spices, mulch, pebbles, soil, and plants. Neto will invite the public to plant the garden in a special presentation, where visitors can connect with the natural environment and one another. Surrounded by an outline of bricks and crochet forms, Neto has created a sanctuary in which the plants can thrive. In the project room, new drawings and smaller sculptures are on display. Neto fills handknit crochet puffs with an array of spices and lays them on the ground so that the spices seep through and create patterns that resemble sun rays on the floor. In the drawing, Neto takes a crochet sculpture filled with spices and throws it onto the paper to create the shape of the sun. By producing a trace of this action, Neto challenges the static nature of sculpture and draws a connection between the human body and his work.
Ernesto Neto, Between Earth and Sky (Installation View)
Ernesto Neto, Between Earth and Sky (Installation View)
Throughout, a deep exploration of the body and its relation to these spaces is always at the foreground, creating a sensuous and calming space in which the gallery attendees are welcome to sit in a co-existence with the work, not merely to view and contemplate, but to quite expressly sit in a state of co-mingling. Presenting this notion of space as a way to heal and grow, Neto’s work feels increasingly vital in the turbulence of 2022.
The show closes June 16th.
– D. Creahan
Read more:
Ernesto Neto at Tanya Bonakdar [Exhibition Site]
