Cildo Meireles
Pares ímpares, 2011/13
Acrylic shelf and two pairs of glasses
2.75 x 47.25 x 19.75 inches (7 x 120 x 50 cm)
Edition of 20
Cildo Meireles
Abajur, 2010
Mixed media
Dimensions variable
Installation view: 29th Bienal de São Paulo, Brazil, 2010
Cildo Meireles
Amerikkka, 1991/2013
20,050 wooden eggs painted with polyurethane lacquer, 40,000 bullets, wood and metal
Dimensions variable
Installation view: Fondazione HangarBicocca, Milan, Italy, 2014
Photo: Agostino Osio
Cildo Meireles
Espaços virtuais: Cantos XI, 1967-68/2014
[Virtual Spaces: Corners XI B]
Wood, canvas, paint, and wood flooring
120 x 42.1 x 42.1 inches (305 x 107 x 107 cm)
Cildo Meireles
Glovetrotter, 2010
Digital print mounted on stainless steel
33.9 x 48 inches (86 x 122 cm)
Edition of 20
Cildo Meireles
Fontes, 1992/2008
6,000 carpenter's rulers; 1,000 clocks; 500,000 vinyl numbers; soundtrack
Dimensions variable
Installation view: Tate Modern, London, England, 2008
Cildo Meireles
Atlas, 2007
Transparency in light box
62 x 50 x 3.5 inches (157.5 x 127 x 9 cm)
Cildo Meireles
Marulho, 1991-1997/2003
Wood, fabric, books, sound
Variable Dimensions
Installation view: Collection Museu de arte moderna, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Cildo Meireles
Babel, 2001
Radios, lighting and sound
Dimensions variable
Installation view: Tate Modern, London, England, 2016
Cildo Meireles
Olvido, 1987-89
6,000 banknotes, 3 tons of bones, 69,300 candles, charcoal and sound
181.1 x 330.7 inches (460 x 840 cm)
Installation view: Fondazione HangarBicocca, Milan, Italy, 2014
Photo: Agostino Osio
Cildo Meireles
Através, 1983-89
[Through]
Fishing nets, voile, reinforced glass, livestock nets, architecture paper, Venetian blinds, garden fencing, wooden gates, prison bars, wooden trellis, iron fencing,mosquito nets, metal city barrier fencing, aquarium, tennis nets, metal stakes, barbed wire, chains, chicken wire, museum rope barriers, cellophane, glass
236.2 x 590.6 x 590.6 inches (600 x 1500 x 1500 cm)
Installation view: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain, 2001
Cildo Meireles
La Bruja, 1979-81
Wooden broom base, cotton threads
Dimensions variable
Installation view: FRAC Lorraine, Metz, France, 2009
Photo: Remi Villaggi
One of the most influential conceptual artists today, and widely considered the most significant living artist from Latin America, Cildo Meireles creates complex installations and sculptures that entice the viewer and challenge political, philosophical, and aesthetic precepts. Meireles’s artistic practice was shaped by the social and political conditions during the dictatorship of Brazil in the 1960s and ‘70s, and by the Neo-Concretist and avant-garde movements. Like his predecessors, Meireles merges physical, cerebral, and sensorial elements in works that elicit audience participation. While Meireles’s works are often created in response to specific political events and situations, they evoke universal themes that are communicated through the viewer’s experience in a shared, rigorously designed and defined space.
Meireles’s work has been exhibited internationally, including the Biennales of Venice, Italy (1976, 2003, 2005, 2009); São Paulo, Brazil (1981, 1989, 1998, 2010); Documenta, Germany (1992, 2002); and Istanbul, Turkey (2003, 2015). In the past twenty years, the artist has been the subject of several large-scale and traveling solo exhibitions at renowned institutions, including Sesc
Pompeia, Sao Paulo, Brazil (2019); Centro Nacional de Arte Contemporaneo Cerrillos, Cerrillos, Chile (2019); Fundação de Serralves, Portugal (2014) HangarBicocca, Milan, Italy (2014); Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Spain (2013); Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Spain (2010); Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico (2010) and Tate Modern, England (2008).
His work is represented in major museums and institutions around the world including the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois; Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Inhotim Centro de Arte Contemporânea, Brazil; Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Finland; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California; Museo d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Spain; Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York; Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Belgium; and Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom.
Meireles was born in 1948 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where he currently lives and works.