Ernesto Neto

by Ryan Moriz

Ernesto Neto is a contemporary artist from Brazil, considered one of the absolute leaders in the country's art scene. For the artist, it is important that the viewer should interact with his work, engaging multiple senses and exploring a multi-sensory experience.

Inspired by Brazilian Neo-concretism, a movement in the 50s and 60s that rejected modernism and its geometric abstraction, Neto's work resembles living organisms and an organic architecture. As described by the artist, his work is an exploration of the body's landscape from within.

His work is primarily exhibited in large exhibitions, where the abstract installations grow and often fill the entire space. Pourous and stretchy nylon or cotton fabrics create a skin around wooden skeletons or hang from the ceiling like tear drops. These materials are often filled with spices, inviting the spectator not only to touch the work but also smell and sense it. In other works, the material is used to make organic structures itself.

Neto has been awarded Chevalier de L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for his installation at the Panthéon in Paris called Leviathan Thot. In 2009 the artist exhibited at New York's Park Avenue Armory, filling the 5,100 square meter hall with a maze-like structure.

His latest installation is for the Louis Vuitton store in Tokyo, where visitors were invited to walk on and interact with a suspended pathway made from his stretchable material.