C110 review

Kilkenny: Four Artists and I at the Butler Gallery

Ernesto Neto: Lipizoids, 2004, eighteen lipizoids, Polyamide stockings, pepper, tumeric, cumin, cloves; photo Anthony Hobbs; courtesy Butler Gallery

Collaborate, collage, collapse, collate, collateral, colleague, collect - all of these words are in sequence in the Collins Minigem English Dictionary and interlink within the context of the recent Ernesto Neto exhibition at the Butler Gallery in Kilkenny.

Neto chose not to go solo but had a vision "from his hammock" whereby he would engage with four artists in interacting with the four-chamber gallery rooms. Upon visiting the gallery, Neto wanted to use the space as a 'time line', to engage in this way with the heavy stone walls of the medieval castle.

Neto's childhood influences were based around the 'Concrete Movement' ethos, whereby 3D art would involve motion and interaction with the spectator. Neto explores the sensibilities of materials, simplicity of forms, and harmony of shapes, the conflict of forms and gravity. He examines a space not just as a physical one but also as one which people, sculpture, architecture and science can occupy.

Each of the four collaborators shares his cultural lineage. These are Tatiana Grinberg, Carlos Bevilacqua, Fernanda Gomes and Franklin Cassaro. So the question of which came first, the chicken or the egg, springs to mind. What seems to be a reactionary approach puts Neto as the stimulus for this interaction / collaboration. He is not a curator or designer, but the eyes through which his work could see and be seen afresh, could react, interact and find a new dialogue within the space. He is like a puppeteer, orchestrating the movements and pulling the strings.

Ernesto Neto: Place for the Musa rest, 2004, Lycra, Styrofoam pelletts mattress; photo Anthony Hobbs; courtesy Butler Gallery

In the contemporary woman and the shadow of the wind (Neto and Cassaro) we see an outstretched shape in transparent white nylon. Gravity expands this double funnel shape at four corners, through the use of weighted sacks filled with a blue-coloured powder. This teasing out of shape creates an inner chamber where two tiny paper cubes are juggled by a fan from below.

There is a delicate, almost functional, yet discarded feel to the familiar work by Gomes - a needle and thread, a woven piece of hair unravelled, a wooden stool once owned by a street newspaper seller. With a curious ball of string wound around its tie bar and with painter's-palette finger-holes in its seat, the work acts as fragments / memories set in time.

Couple (Neto) nestles into a corner. Caucasian-skin-coloured nylons are filled with red glass beads, thus creating a human connection representing us the viewers as the vessel. Lipizoids (Neto) is an assemblage of eighteen nylon-filled sachets that awaken the senses in subtle ways. Each is filled with powdered cloves, pepper, cumin and turmeric.

Ernesto Neto: Musa, 2001, High viscosity gel and plastic bowls x2, dimension variable; photo Anthony Hobbs; courtesy Butler Gallery

The works created by Bevilacqua and Neto resemble molecular-space-shaped structures. Each is delicately made using wooden spheres, coloured strings and glass beads. Alpha 12 is a conceptual collision of 'conquering space' and the comic TV drama My favorite Martian.

Play for the Musa rest (Neto) displays pure indulgence in playful interaction. It is a lycra-filled mattress, a giant globular form nestled into a corner. Although a dull brown colour, it invites a full sensory play and invokes smiles whether as an observer or physical participant. A sister piece by Grinberg is Musa; a white mass of plasma on the floor, along with white plastic bowls (punched with holes), invites the viewer to participate. Through this interaction a print remains and is preserved in time. Grinberg's Cuts (torso, portrait, pirate, detail) is a set of four acrylic mirrors which quietly observe as they prop themselves up against a nearby wall.

Ernesto Neto, Franklin Cassaro: Contemporary Woman and the shadow of the wind, 2004, Ltcrq tulle,dry sand, paper cubes, electric fan, 310 x 400 x 400 cm; photo Anthony Hobbs; courtesy Butler Gallery

The puppeteer threads only become evident as one finishes the 'time line' journey. You begin to make connections, linking the nylon skin and palette holes as other worlds; woven and tea-stained time moments as fragility and strength,

earthly and cosmic relationships. On a grand scale the show evokes in a quiet and contemplative way those questions of the 'what's it all about' kind? The puppeteer now becomes the viewer.

Pauline O'Connell is an artist living in Kilkenny

Four Artists and I, Butler Gallery, Kilkenny, August - October 2004

Article reproduced from CIRCA 110, Winter 2004, p.76–77
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