Ernesto Neto

quote from http://www.tanyabonakdargallery.com/artists/ernesto-neto/series

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

quote from http://www.kiasma.fi/en/calendar/ernesto-neto/

Neto is intrigued by traditions and rituals of Huni Kuin, particularly by their desire to achieve happiness and harmony in life and to abide by the timeless wisdom of nature.

maybe thats what i want to say that to be in tune with nature is to be happy and relax, that nature is timeless, the city always has new development - however so that the natural world, plants wither and die and grow again, and slowly over time species evolve, i guess its a bit like the city, the buildings are built and knocked down and eventually the city evolves. so i guess the question is why am i more fascinated by the nature than the city? i think always its bee that in the grey i city is where i was most of the time, thats where i lived and grew up, an it was a rare occasion when i got the chance to visit outside and these were like little holidays, even if they were only for part of a day, when everything else can be forgotten. and this gradual repeated trips became part of my psyche, these little things that made me happy to break away from the city, that made me revere the nature, the countryside, much more than the city. this includes the wider views that refernce human activity, the fields, the hedgrerows, the tracks, the distant buildings, towns and smoke rising frozen in the evening air. but also the macro views of a single plant, a single leaf, a single berry that i pick and eat, the aumtumnal leafs falling from the sky in a breeze surrounding me in a golden falling rain, being lost in the middle of a forest, it makes me yearn for the primeval days when the UK was covered in forest and settlements were few and far between.

his work is quite primal and tribal, one can imagine some remote tribes in the brazilian rainforest or somewhere far into the bush of austrailia somewhere lost in time happy in their small role in the world tucked away from the wars, living by their traditions.

quotes from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-features/7772975/Ernesto-Neto-interview-for-Festival-Brazil-realm-of-the-senses.html

My work,’ Ernesto Neto declares suddenly, 'is about liquids, about drinking. I love to drink. Drinking is such a delicious thing. When you drink, ahh…’ – he lets out a sigh of pleasure – 'amazing beer, great wine, fruit juice, coconut milk or water, it is so good. I think we should pray a little bit every time we drink something.’

thats interesting becaue i didnt excatly get that feeling from looking at his work, i thought it was abut cultures and traditions and bringing people together to experience each other, not just through speaking, but getting to go to cultural places and feel the feel on your skin, the sounds, the sights, the flavours and smells.

One of the themes in recent Brazilian art is the way that the viewer is encouraged to interact with it. Very often, Neto’s work encourages you to do the opposite of what art galleries generally instruct: do not touch.

so far in the last year often my work has incorportated this element, with my last series about the both the wasted and lost time on train journeys, and the inbetween space, which required viewers to physically move the papers themselves. now i have this idea that the images will be everexposed and lost on the walls, with a better exposure underneath requiring the viewer to physically turn the papers. to see properly the picture.

You are supposed to lean against a Neto, recline on it, even put it on. In fact, Cliff Lauson, the curator of the new exhibition, says that it will be impossible not to do so at the Hayward – some of the work takes the form of a corridor leading from one part of the exhibition to another.

my work will not be this involved! it was nice in my previous piece as i wanted people to feel the paper, and feel this precious little thing in their hand.

'People are too scared all the time of something going wrong. But there’s no need to worry about that. Things go wrong all the time. My work is all about things going wrong!’

yeah he as well has totally embraced this feeling out of control things going wrong, and used it to make something creative, i need to find this instead of feeling suffocated by it

quotes from http://playgallery.org/stories/neto/

And another thing is, you let each thing have its own nature. You don't want to control: "Oh, no. This should be like this." The work doesn't want to be like this. It's a dialogue with the work, itself.

he is letting the work have its own life, he just shapes it and moulds it but it makes itself i think is what he is saying

You spoke of something in your talk, something that seemed really humble and human to me. You said that sometimes you just have to allow yourself to feel kind of down, or kind of depressed about your work, to give it some space, in order to move on. I was wondering if you could explain what you meant by that.

This is very personal and I don't know if this applies to everybody. But with myself, I realized that sometimes I would go to the studio and I would try to work and at some point, I couldn't do anything. I would lay down, and begin to feel myself getting depressed. Then, suddenly something would shift, and I would have a great idea, and begin to work again.

So, because of my experience, I began to think that depression is something that is a normal part of life. It's kind of necessary, to sometimes feel like a little animal. Sometimes you need to be down. You can not be up all the time.

again another artist talking about this processes of embracing the depression and the waiting, that it isnt always productivity 24/7 you need to take a break and that takes time, i gus my problem is that my break has been so long i dont have time for anymore breaks, and the timeframe was so short in the beginning that any break was too long

If I have an idea, and I make the work, and it turns out to be exactly the idea, I say, "Oh! It's exactly what I was thinking!" And, I think it's a stupid work.

Because it's boring. It didn't surprise you.

Because there's nothing. No transit. Nothing happened in between. If it's something that I can think, then what's the point?

this is kind of the opposite of how i feel, i feel like i must think in every moment and have some reason or thought behind everything i do in every moment, and perhaps for him there is a reason for everything, but he feel free to create and find the meaning later.