Rivane Neuenschwander (Belo Horizonte MG 1967)
Rivane Neuenschwander is a visual artist. He studied drawing at the School of Fine Arts of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) between 1989 and 1994. In 1992, he held his first solo exhibition at Itaú Galeria de Belo Horizonte and São Paulo. In 1993, he received the Marc Ferrez Photography Award for the Ex-Votos Project, Photographic Objects, presented at the National Art Foundation – Funarte, in Rio de Janeiro. In 1996, she was awarded in the Antarctica Artes com o Folha project, alongside Marepe and Cabelo (1967). Between 1996 and 1998, he was a resident artist at the Royal College of Art in London. He participated in the 24th International Biennial of São Paulo, in 1998. In the same year, he served as art director of the short film Otto, I am another, directed by Lucas Bambozzi (1965) and Cao Guimarães.
In 1999, he participated as a resident artist at the International Artists Studio Program in Sweden (IASPIS) in Stockholm, Sweden. In partnership with Cao Guimarães, he directed the experimental videos Sopro (2000) and Word/World (2001). In 2001, he received an Artpace Foundation award, based in San Antonio, United States. Participated in the Venice International Biennale in 2003 and 2004, and the 27th São Paulo International Biennial in 2006.
Critical Comment
Rivane's first works Neuenschwander, for Lisette Lagnado art criticism, consist of space designs. It creates works with a light and diaphanous texture, using materials such as plastics, garlic husks or petals. In her works, the artist works based on a subjectivity based on the idea of transforming things. It thus elaborates a silent resistance to the smallest destructions that occur in everyday life. In an installation that holds for the Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, the artist builds two similar, cubic and totally white dwellings. On the walls and on the floor, he nails fragments of self-adhesive plastic, 50 x 50 cm squares, which contain various residues, such as bread crumbs, hair, pieces of onion and dust from the floor of his home in London. Its purpose is that, by allowing viewers to transit through these places, they transpose the residues throughout the exhibition space. For the scholar Rosa Martinez, the artist contrasts the geometry related to the dirt of the domestic space to the random itineraries performed by the public and provides a reflection on the interference and interactions between the staff and the public. In other works, he uses white porcelain dishes, in which he combines organic elements, such as wasp wings, soy oil, water and seeds with industrial materials, such as silicone and plastic, composing lines and shapes on the surface of the plate defined by the juxtaposition of different materials. In starving cartography (2000) he exposes drawings that appear on paper after he has been eaten by slugs. The artist interferes in the work, guiding the slugs through shadows on the paper, resulting in images that approach a map. For Martinez, in each of Rivane Neuenschwander's work there is a load of depth, of latent meanings and the will to create beauty of contemporary materials and procedures.
Criticism
"Rivane's works Neuenschwander are celebrations. They are ornaments for possible sacred rituals. The celebration of the dishcloth meeting with cooking oil. The slow climbing of mold on a drifting floor cloth. The solitude of a wedding dress in a white room. communion of the forgotten embalmed of non-existence. to sublunar catharsis between the lines of the world. anointing of the sick. the extreme-unction. to shift the meaning of things. to privilege subcutaneous information. to decipher the cloth cell. neuralgic and obsessive is opposed to the delicacy of what is being configured. Matter is leased and shattered into thousands of particles. Fire is the denudation and glue. Fire is the amnesia of the first form. are aggregated like a tribal dance. The convergence of tribes is archeology of form. A congregation of trifles founds a new order. An accumulation of heat generates a death without pain: euthanasia. impregnated by the smoke of a thurible, emitting codes such as fire-witted, enticed by the simplicity of the plot, the objects silence their abject past". Cao. In: Abjeto Belo Horizonte: Centro Cultural da UFMG, 1994 p. 29.
"Rivane made his own voodoos, but realized that the act of buying them ready-made would be better suited to the desired enhancement of the materials. Then came the sculptural concern, with the structuring of new forms. Its lace sewn/burned with incense and hanging from the ceiling turns into a penetrable and organic mobile, which refers to an interior latada of loofahs. Rivane works like this with rescues from his past and a collective memory. They are endless repetitions, like the stitches of a seam, which link your personal experience to a larger, feminine and baroque web." Minimum Folha de S. Paulo. Ilustrada, 02 Jul. 1996, P. 4-8.
"Narration is an incessant exercise against death. Using textures that are light and diaphanous (plastics, garlic peels, petals), the artist develops a silent resistance against the minimal destruction that happens on a daily basis. Rivane arrives, with great boldness and beauty, weaving the memory of the everyday life that passes by wasted. Between the spiritual and the temporal (a Baroque heritage), this work in relief evokes a patience that weaves its fabric in infinity. It is as if the artist is saying that real life consists of the part that is absent. Hence his desire, an insatiable desire for an emptiness that is more metaphysical than intimate".
Lisette Lagnado
lagnado, Lisette. Immersion in time: on the work of Rivane Neuenschwander. São Paulo, Jun. 1997. Translated text.
Individual exhibitions
1992 - Belo Horizonte MG - Individual, at Itaugaleria
1992 - São Paulo SP - Individual, at Itaugaleria
1996 - São Paulo SP - Individual, at Casa Triângulo
1997 - London (England) - Individual, at Stephen Friedman Gallery
1999 - London (England) - Individual, at Stephen Friedman Gallery
2000 - Dublin (Ireland) - Individual, at Douglas Hyde Gallery
2000 - Stockholm (Sweden) - Syndrome: Rivane Neuenschwander, at International Artist's Studio Program in Sweden
2000 - São Paulo SP - Individual, at the Camargo Vilaça Gallery
2001 - London (England) - Individual, at Stephen Friedman Gallery
2001 - New York (United States) - Individual, at The Americas Society
2001 - Texas (United States) - Individual, at the Artpace Foundation
2002 - Belo Horizonte MG - Individual, at MAP
2002 - Paris (France) - Individual, at the Palais de Tokyo
2003 - São Paulo SP - Individual, at Galeria Fortes Vilaça
Collective exhibitions
1989 - Belo Horizonte MG - 21st National Art Salon at MAP
1989 - Belo Horizonte MG - 8th University Art Salon, UFMG
1990 - Belo Horizonte MG - 1,000 meters of art, at MAP
1990 - Belo Horizonte MG - 22nd National Art Salon, at MAP
1991 - Belo Horizonte MG - 15,000 kg, at Palácio das Artes
1992 - Belo Horizonte MG - Contemporary Utopias, at Palácio das Artes
1993 - Belo Horizonte MG - The line of space, at the Mineiro Museum
1993 - Belo Horizonte MG - Standards, in the Municipal Park
1993 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 13th National Salon of Plastic Arts - Marc Ferrez Photography Award
1994 - Belo Horizonte MG - Abjeto, at the UFMG Cultural Center
1994 - Ouro Preto MG - The Virtual Identity: A Pedra Sabão, at the Inconfidência Museum
1994 - Porto Alegre RS - Art Against AIDS, at Margs
1994 - São Paulo SP - Collection 94, at Galeria Casa Triangle
1994 - São Paulo SP - non-virtual image, at the Casa Triângulo gallery
1995 - Belo Horizonte MG - Guaicurus, in the Shed of the UFMG Cultural Center
1995 - Belo Horizonte MG - HIC Manebimus op Time, at the Manoel Macedo Art Gallery
1995 - Niterói RJ - Rubinho-Neuenschwander-Freire-Barachini, at the UFF Arts Center
1995 - Rio de January RJ - A perverse childhood: Fables on memory and time, at MAM/RJ
1995 - Salvador BA - Perverse childhood: Fables on memory and time, at MAM/BA
1995 - São Paulo SP - Tomorrow, today: Casa Triângulo from 1988 to 1995, at the MAB Salão Cultural
1996 - Belo Horizonte MG - Surroundings, at Gestão Graphic
1996 - Buenos Aires (Argentina) - Latin America 96, at the National Museum of Fine Arts of Buenos Aires
1996 - São Paulo SP - Antarctica Artes com a Folha, at the Manoel da Nóbrega Pavilion
1997 - Istanbul (Turkey) - 5th Istanbul International Biennale
1997 - Johannesburg (South Africa) - 2nd Johannesburg Biennial
1997 - Madrid (Spain) - Arc Contemporary Art Fair, at the Juan Carlos I
1997 - Sydney (Australia) material at The Art Gallery of New South Wales
1998 - New York (United States) - Bili Bidjoka, Los Carpinteros, Rivane Neuenschwander, at the New Museum of Contemporary Art
1998 - São Paulo SP - 24th São Paulo International Biennial, at the Bienal Foundation
1999 - Berlin (Germany) - Au Dela', at the Galerie Klosterfeld
1999 - Colorado (United States) - Powder at The Aspen Art Museum
1999 - Liverpool (England) - 1st Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art, at the Exchange Flags
1999 - New Mexico NM (United States) - Looking for a Place, The Third International Biennal
1999 - São Paulo SP - Daily life/Art: The Object - The 90s, at Itaú Cultural
1999 - Yokahama (Japan) - Luminous Mischief, at Yokahama Portside Gallery
1999 - Bergen (Norway) - Calming the Clouds, at the Foundation 3.14
2000 - Buenos Aires (Argentina) - Brazil: plural y singular, in the Museum of Modern Art of Buenos Aires
2000 - Curitiba PR - Images in question, at the Caixa Econômica Federal gallery
2000 - Curitiba PR - 12th Exhibition of the Engraving of Curitiba. Body marks, Soul Folds
2000 - Stockholm (Sweden) - Syndrome: Disappear, at International Artist's Studio Program in Sweden
2000 - Limerick (Ireland) - Friends and Neighbors, at Limerick City Gallery of Art
2000 - Madrid (Spain) Osaka (Japan) - Space Experiences: Homage to the National Museum of Art
2000 - Salvador BA - The stillness of the earth: everyday life, contemporary art and axé project, at MAM/BA
2000 - São Paulo SP - Brazil + 500 Rediscovery Exhibition, at Fundação Bienal
2000 - São Paulo SP - End of Millennium: The 90s at MAM, at MAM/SP
2001 - São Paulo SP - 2nd Sérgio Motta Award
2001 - São Paulo SP - Trajectory of Light in Brazilian Art, at Itaú Cultural
2001 - São Paulo SP - 27th Panorama of Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
2001 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Blind Mirror: Selections of a Contemporary Collection, at Paço Imperial
2001 - São Paulo SP - Blind Mirror: Selections from a contemporary collection, at MAM/SP 
2002 - Belo Horizonte MG - 100 years of the poet Carlos Drummond de Andrade, at Palácio das Artes
2002 - Liverpool (England) - Pot
2002 - London (England) - Experiences: Dialogues between the works of brazilian artists from the 1960s to 2002, at the new art gallery walsall
2002 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Paths of the Contemporary 1952-2002, at Paço Imperial
2002 - Salvador BA - 27th Brazilian Art Panorama, at MAM/BA
2002 - São Paulo SP - In situ: Art and Technology, at Instituto Cine Cultural
2002 - São Paulo SP - Paralela, in the shed located on Avenida Matarazzo
2002 - São Paulo SP - Pot, at the Fortes Vilaça Gallery
2002 - São Paulo SP - Rotating Phase 2, at Galeria Fortes Vilaça
2002 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 27th Panorama de Arte Brasileria, at MAM/RJ
2003 - Recife PE - Ernesto Neto and Rivane Neuenschwander, at Margs
2003 - São Paulo SP - A Nova Geometry, at Galeria Fortes Vilaça
2003 - São Paulo SP - Modes to use, at Galeria Vermelho
2003 - Venice (Italy) - 50th Bienal de Venice at Arsenale and Giardini della Biennale
2004 - Belo Horizonte MG - Pampulha, work collected: 1943-2003, at MAP 
2004 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brazilian contemporary art in the collections of Rio, at MAM/RJ
2004 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - New Acquisitions 2003: Gilberto Chateubriand Collection, at MAM/RJ 
2004 - São Paulo SP - Summer Bazar, at the Fortes Vilaça Gallery
2004 - São Paulo SP - Drifles, at Galeria Vermelho
Source: Itaú Cultural
