Ernesto Neto: Children of the Earth
1010 North Highland Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90038
Saturday, September 14 at 6:00 PM 8:00 PM
Ends Nov 2, 2019
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery is pleased to announce an upcoming solo exhibition with Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto, at our Los Angeles Gallery location opening on September 14, 2019. This will be the artist's first exhibition in Los Angeles since 2003 when he installed a one-person presentation at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Pacific Design Center. In 2007, Neto’s work was the subject of a solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. His work is part of major public collections on the West Coast such as the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego. 

 Over the past three decades Ernesto Neto’s work has explored the construction of social spaces and the natural world. One of the most influential artists of his generation, Neto has become known for his immersive environments of color, fragrance and sound, and for his use of materials such as hand-dyed fabric, spices and shells. Since the 1990s Ernesto Neto has created a distinct body of work - an ongoing formal inquiry into space, volume, balance and gravity that is equally informed by sensuality, energy and spirituality. Inspired by a wide range of sources–from Brazilian avant-garde artists such as Hélio Oiticica and Lygia Clarke, through the Modernist abstraction of Calder and Brancusi, to the natural world, shamanism and craft culture. Neto’s highly tactile, biomorphic sculptures engage all of our senses and redefine the relationship between artwork and viewer. Pushing the boundaries of physical space and inviting a new type of interaction, Neto creates an experience that is at the same time physical, sensorial, intellectual and social.

 Born in 1964 in Rio de Janeiro, the artist continues to live and work in Brazil. His work has been the subject of major museum exhibitions worldwide. Recent highlights include Ernesto Neto: Sopro (Blow) a large-scale survey of the artist’s work at the São Paulo Pinacoteca, Brazil (on view through July 2019 and traveling to the Museum of Latin American Art in Buenos Aires, Argentina and to the Palacio de La Moneda Cultural Center, Santiago, Chile); GaiaMotherTree, a site specific installation at the Zurich Train Station in collaboration with the Foundation Beyeler (2018); Water Falls from my Breast to the Sky, a site-specific permanent installation at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2017); Ernesto Neto at the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki, Finland (2016); Ernesto Neto and the Huni Kuin ~ Aru Kuxipa | Sacred Secret, TBA 21 Contemporary, Augarten, Vienna, Austria (2015); Ernesto Neto: Haux Haux, Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck, Reman, Germany (2014); and Ernesto Neto: The body that carries me, at the Guggenheim, Bilbao, Spain (2014). The artist also presented important solo exhibitions at the Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas (2012); Faena Arts Center, Buenos Aires, which traveled to Estação Leopoldina, Rio de Janeiro (2011-2012); Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey, Mexico (2011); Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, London (2010); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2010); Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo (2010); Sao Paulo Museum of Modern Art (2010); Museo d'Arte Contemporanea Roma, Italy (2008); Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia (2002); and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. (2002), among others. In 2001 he represented Brazil at the 49th Venice Biennale, and in 2017 was prominently featured in Vive Arte Viva at the 57th Venice Biennale curated by Christine Macel. His work has also been featured in numerous group exhibitions and biennials, most recently the 14th Biennale de Lyon, curated by Emma Lavigne (2017), Manifesta 7 (2015), along with group shows at Guggenheim Bilbao, Albright Knox Art Gallery, and Centre Pompidou-Metz.