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John Perreault's art diary

Ernesto Neto at the Armory

May 18, 2009 by John Perreault

 

 


 
bestimage.jpg 

In The Womb of the Tropical Spider 

 

Lycra deployed like tenting, like venting, like pastel parachutes and saliva, forming  a  gigantic “spider” with udderlike, fabric stalactites weighed down with turmeric, glove, ginger, black pepper, and cumin introduces the hallucinatory feminine into the splendiferous, all-male, historic Park Avenue Armory.

 

One needs people cautiously making their way through the fabric passageways; one needs children innocently romping to see the danger of this participatory venture.

 

Brazilian Ernesto Neto’s  anthropodino (through June 14), a jaw-dropping marriage of science-fiction and the nursery, is magnificently creepy.

 

Those of us who know a little about Brazilian art immediately see the references to the nests and participatory environments of Hélio Oticica (1937-1980) and the healing art of Lygia Clark (1920-1988).

 

 

Patagoles 1964-79.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hélio Oticica: Paragoles (1965-79)

 

Oticica and Clark were co-founders of Neo-Concretism which progressed from Neo-Plasticism, to art variables, to multi-sensory and multi-sensual participatory art.  Clark, in particular,  was an artist who truly seems to have come from another planet — a genius who has not yet received her due. Some of her healing rituals involved sand-filled fabric tubes placed on various parts of the body.

 

 


lc_babaantropofagica1973.jpg 

Lygia Clark: Baba Antropofagica [Cannibalistic Slobber], 1973.

 

In the meantime, Neto’s vast  playpen is a good reminder that there are art worlds within art worlds and fields of “otherness” not yet conquered because we stay too focused on what peaks and speaks (or used to peak) in auction houses.

 

 

 

Forthcoming on Artopia:

 

 Oldenburg at the Whitney,  Wednesday, May 20. 

 

The Pictures Generation at the Met, Friday, May 22.

 

Art Strike Announced, Tuesday, May 26.

 

 

Never miss an Artopia installment! For an Automatic Artopia Alert,

contact: perreault@aol.com

Filed Under: main Tagged With: Ernesto Neto Lygia Clark Helio Oiticica Park Avenue Armory Brazilian art

John Perreault

I have written about art for a number of years, specializing in first-person art criticism as art critic for the Village Voice, then in the Soho News. I have championed... Read More…

Artopia

ARTOPIA is an art diary featuring my evaluations of the art I see in galleries, museums, public spaces, and sometimes in artists' studios. I specialize in new art or art that needs to be looked at in a fresh way, in terms of contemporary practice. … [Read More...]

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