Ernesto Neto

ernesto neto is considered one of the absolute leaders of brazil’s contemporary art scene.
his inspiration comes partly from brazilian neo-concretism. at the end of the 1950s and
beginning of the 60s the movement’s best-known proponents, lygia clarc and hélio oiticica, rejected modernism’s ideas of autonomous geometric abstraction. instead, they wanted to equate art with living organisms in a kind of organic architecture, and invite the viewer to be an active participant.
ernesto neto works with abstract installations which often take up the entire exhibition space. his materials are gossamer-thin, light, stretchable fabrics in nylon or cotton. like fine membranes fixed to the ceiling by long, stretched threads his works hang down into the room and create shapes that are almost organic. sometimes they are filled with scented spices and hang in tear-shaped forms like gigantic mushrooms or huge stockings, sometimes he creates peculiar soft sculptures which the visitor is allowed to feel through small openings in the surface. he also creates spatial labyrinths which the visitor can enter and thereby experience the work and interact with it.

neto’s art is an experience which creates associations with the body and with something
organic. he describes his works as an exploration and a representation of the body’s
landscape from within. it is important to neto that the viewer should actively interact with
and physically experience his work by feeling, smelling, and touching it.

http://www.designboom.com/contemporary/neto.html