Seduções. Valeska Soares, Cildo Meireles, Ernesto Neto

The exhibition Seduções (Seductions) examined the variety and subtle ambiguity of recent Brazilian art. Cildo Meireles, Ernesto Neto, and Valeska Soares each presented an installation that testified to the exceptional quality of their work but could scarcely be more different in terms of choice of materials and formal vocabulary.

Cildo Meireles (* 1948) had participated in two Documenta exhibitions. In Zurich he presented Missão/Missões (How to Build Cathedrals), in which 2,000 cow bones and 800 Eucharistic hosts seemed to hover above a rectangular ‘floor’ consisting of 600,000 coins.

The installations of Ernesto Neto (1964) and Valeska Soares (1957) addressed sensory perception. Entering Neto’s Globiobabel Nudeliome Landmoonaia, the viewer encountered a biomorphic world made of lycra tulle that generated a sense of intimacy and security. By contrast, Soares’s Vanishing Point reflected the rigorous, minimalist aesthetic she favors, comprising fifteen steel containers shaped and arranged in the manner of a Baroque garden and filled with colored, perfumed liquid.