Ernesto Neto

at Faena Arts Center, Buenos Aires

Faena Arts Center, Buenos Aires, is presenting Ernesto Neto's exhibition, O Bicho SusPenso na PaisaGen (Bug Suspended in the Landscape), curated by Jessica Morgan, contemporary art curator at Tate Modern. A complete catalogue will release in December 2011.

Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1964, where he currently works, Ernesto Neto is one of the most important figures on the Brazilian art scene today. He came out of the Brazilian Neo-Concrete art movement, which placed the spectator at the heart of the creative process; thus, physical interaction became a key aspect of this artist's work. It is an invitation for the viewer to touch, smell and enters the space created by the artist.

Ernesto Neto

The organic shapes in his work rise from observing the body as a sort of internal landscape, creating an impression of fragility and sensuality. His works include sculptures and installations. Neto works with abstract installations that often take up the entire exhibition space, creating spatial labyrinths where thin membranes—stretched to the maximum and tied at different locations—are suspending, sometimes with the shape of enormous drops of different colours and scents (saffron, clove). His work emphasizes the elastic nature of fabric, the force of gravity, spices and polyethylene foam.

His work has been shown in many group and solo exhibitions around the world in museums such as MoMA, New York, Tate Modern Gallery, London, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, MNAM Centre George Pompidou, Paris, MOCA, Miami, among others museums and also at the 49th Venice Biennial, and the 5th Mercosur Biennial, Porto Alegre.

The goal of the Faena Arts Center is to provide a space for cutting-edge expressions in contemporary art through a program of exhibitions with a strong interdisciplinary focus.

The Faena Arts Center´s vision is that the boldest of today's art can be found along the borders where traditional disciplines come together: the lines where the visual arts merge with design, architecture, new technologies, fashion and literature. It´s aspiration is to create a program of exhibitions distinguished by its experimental, dynamic, local and international taste: it is a space that places no limits on risky art, a space that looks towards the future.

The center operates in what was once an old grain mill, an impressive space whose nourishing aspects we have worked to recover, only this time, from the perspective of culture. This building is a space like no other in Argentina, thanks to its size and style. Therefore, this allows us to get the goal for bringing together artists, designers and filmmakers from both Argentina and abroad, to create site-specific works that not only interacts with the monumental architecture of the old mill but also, explore the cultural and urban conditions of our surroundings.

O Bicho SusPenso na PaisaGen - until February 12, 2012

www.faenaartscenter.org