Ernesto Neto

Overview

Since the mid-1990s, Ernesto Neto has produced an influential body of work that explores constructions of social space and the natural world by inviting physical interaction and sensory experience. Drawing from Biomorphism and minimalist sculpture, along with Neo-concretism and other Brazilian vanguard movements of the 1960s & 70s, the artist both references and incorporates organic shapes and materials – spices, sand and shells among them—that engage all five senses, producing a new type of sensory perception that renegotiates boundaries between artwork and viewer, the organic and manmade, the natural, spiritual and social worlds.

Works
Exhibitions
Publications
Born in 1964 in Rio de Janeiro, the artist continues to live and work in Brazil. He studied at the city’s MAM Museum of Modern Art at Rio de Janeiro in 1984 through 1986, and also attended Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage in 1987.

Ernesto Neto's work has been the subject of major museum exhibitions worldwide, including: SunForceOceanLife at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (2021), Mentre la vita ci respira at GAMeC, Bergamo, Italy (2021), Water Falls from the Breast to the Sky at Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago (2020), Ernesto Neto: Sopro (Blow) at Pinacoteca, São Paulo (traveled to Malba, Museum of Latin American Art, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Palacio de La Moneda Cultural Center, Santiago, Chile) (2019), Ernesto Neto: Rui Ni / Voices of the Earth at KUNSTEN Museum of Modern Art Aalborg, Denmark (2016), Ernesto Neto: Boa at Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki, Finland (2016), Ernesto Neto: Mother Body Emotional Densities, For Alive Temple Time Baby Son at MCA San Diego (2015), Ernesto Neto: Haux Haux at Arp Museum Bahnof Rolandseck, Germany (2014), Ernesto Neto: Gratitude at Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO (2014), Ernesto Neto: The body that carries me at Guggenheim, Bilbao, Spain (2014), Ernesto Neto: Madness is Part of Life at Espace Louis Vuitton, Tokyo (2012), Ernesto Neto: Cuddle on the Tightrope at Nasher Sculpture Center (2012), Ernesto Neto at Faena Arts Center in Buenos Aires, which traveled to Estação Leopoldina in Rio de Janeiro (2011-2012), Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre in London (2010) Museum of Modern Art in New York (2010), Ernesto Neto: Intimacy at Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art in Oslo (2010), Dengo at Sao Paulo Museum of Modern Art (2010), Ernesto Neto - Mentre niente accade/ while nothing happens at Museo d'Arte Contemporanea Roma in Italy (2008), Ernesto Neto at Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia (2002), Directions-Ernesto Neto, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. (2002), among others. 
 
His work has also been featured in numerous group exhibitions and biennials, most recently the 14th Biennale de Lyon, curated by Emma Lavigne (2017) and Manifesta 7 (2015). In 2001 he represented Brazil at the 49th Venice Biennale, and in 2017 Neto was prominently featured in Vive Arte Viva at the 57th Venice Biennale curated by Christine Macel. Neto has been included in major group shows at Guggenheim Bilbao, Albright Knox Art Gallery, Centre Pompidou-Metz, and a permanent installation at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. In summer 2018, a large installation GaiaMotherTree was successfully shown at the Zurich train station, in collaboration with Fondation Beyeler, with a month-long corresponding public and education program that took place inside the work.
 
Neto’s work is extremely well represented in international museum collections, including those of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Tate Gallery in London, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam, Centre Pompidou in Paris, Hara Museum in Tokyo, Contemporary Art Center of Inhotim in Brazil, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., Milwaukee Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, among many others.