Ernesto Neto
Born 1964, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Lives and works in Rio de Janeiro

Ernesto Neto’s Nude Plasmic is a room-size, membranelike compartment made from translucent stretchy fabric that requires activation by the viewer to give it full meaning. Form and content are synthesized in Neto’s work as participants journey through the sculpture’s passages, creating and transforming its composition, while its ever-changing form modifies the experience for viewers outside the work. This interaction between object and subject raises the connection between viewer and artwork to an intimate level. Neto’s emphasis on a performing body has its roots in Brazil’s Neo-Concrete body-centered art movement of the 1950s and 1960s. 

Ernesto Neto, Nude Plasmic, 1999 (installation view)

Ernesto Neto, Nude Plasmic, 1999 (installation view detail)

Ernesto Neto responds to questions in the Artists of the Week section in this site.

Ernesto Neto’s work has appeared frequently in international exhibitions, including 1st Kwangju Biennale (1995); and Sydney Biennial and XXIV Bienal de São Paulo (1998). Neto’s group exhibitions include The Five Senses, White Columns, New York (1995); Defining the Nineties: Consensus-making in New York, Miami and Los Angeles, Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami, Florida (1996); Arte Contemporânea da Gravura Brasil-Reflexão 97, Museu Metropolitano de Arte de Curitiba, As Outras Modernidades, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, and Material Immaterial, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (1997); Loose Threads, Serpentine Gallery, London (1998); and A vueltas con los Sentidos, Casa de América, Madrid (1999). Solo exhibitions of Neto’s work have been presented since 1988, most recently at Fundação Cultural do Distrito Federal, Brasília, and Galeria Camargo Vilaça, São Paulo (1997); and Bonakdar Jancou Gallery, New York, and Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Carrilo Gil, Mexico City (1998).

Education
1994, 1997 Escola de Artes Visuais Pargua Lage, Rio de Janeiro

1994-96 Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro

Selected Further Reading
Ebony, David. “Ernesto Neto at Bonakdar Jancou.” Art in America 87, no. 6 (June 1999): 118.

Centro Cultural Light, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Poéticas de Cor (1998). Exhibi- tion catalogue, text by Ligia Canongia.

Galeria Camargo Vilaça, São Paulo, Brazil. Ernesto Neto (1998). Exhibition catalogue, text by Carlos Basualdo.

Pedrosa, Adriano. “Ernesto Neto.” Frieze, no. 39 (March/ April 1998): 91.

Galeria Camargo Vilaça, São Paulo, Brazil. Ernesto Neto (1994). Exhibition catalogue, text by Paulo Herkenhoff.

Selected Links
www.angelfire.com/ri/eneto/