Rivane Neuenschwander (Belo Horizonte MG 1967)
Rivane Neuenschwander is a visual artist. She studied drawing at the Escola de Belas Artes of the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG) between 1989 and 1994. In 1992, she held her first solo exhibition at Itaú Galeria in Belo Horizonte and São Paulo. In 1993, she received the Marc Ferrez Photography Award for the project Ex-Votos, Objetos Fotográficos [Ex-Votos, Photographic Objects], presented at the Fundação Nacional de Arte – Funarte, in Rio de Janeiro. In 1996, she received an award in the Antarctica Artes com a Folha project, alongside Marepe and Cabelo (1967). Between 1996 and 1998, she was an artist in residence at the Royal College of Art in London. She took part in the 24th São Paulo International Biennial in 1998. That same year, she was art director of the short film Otto, Eu Sou um Outro [Otto, I Am an Other], directed by Lucas Bambozzi (1965) and Cao Guimarães.
In 1999, she was an artist in residence at the International Artists Studio Program in Sweden (Iaspis), in Stockholm, Sweden. Together with Cao Guimarães, she directed the experimental videos Sopro [Breath] (2000) and Word/World (2001). In 2001, she received an award from the ArtPace Foundation, based in San Antonio, United States. She took part in the Venice Biennale in 2003 and 2005, and in the 27th São Paulo International Biennial in 2006.
Critical Commentary
According to art critic Lisette Lagnado, Rivane Neuenschwander's first works consist of spatial drawings. She creates works of light, diaphanous texture, using materials such as plastic, garlic skins or petals. In her works, the artist operates from a subjectivity grounded in the idea of the transformation of things. She thus develops a silent resistance to the minute destructions that occur in everyday life. In an installation made for the São Paulo International Biennial, the artist builds two similar cubic, completely white rooms. On the walls and floor she fixes pieces of self-adhesive plastic, 50 x 50 cm squares, containing various residues, such as breadcrumbs, hair, bits of onion and dust from the floor of her home in London. Her aim is that, as viewers walk through these spaces, they carry the residues throughout the exhibition space. For the curator Rosa Martinez, the artist sets the geometry associated with the dirt of domestic space against the random paths taken by the public, prompting reflection on the interferences and interactions between the personal and the public. In other works, she uses white porcelain plates on which she combines organic elements, such as wasp wings, soybean oil, water and seeds, with industrial materials, such as silicone and plastic, composing on the surface of the plate lines and shapes defined by the juxtaposition of the different materials. In Cartografia Faminta [Hungry Cartography] (2000), she shows drawings that appear on paper after it has been eaten by slugs. The artist intervenes in the work, guiding the slugs by means of shadows on the paper, resulting in images that resemble a map. For Martinez, each of Rivane Neuenschwander's works carries a depth charge of latent meanings and a desire to create beauty from contemporary materials and procedures.
Critiques
"Rivane Neuenschwander's works are celebrations. They are ornaments for possible sacred rituals. The celebration of the meeting of the dish towel with cooking oil. The slow climb of mold on a drifting floor cloth. The solitude of a wedding dress in a white room. The communion of the forgotten, embalmed in non-existence. Sublunar catharsis between the lines of the world. Anointing of the sick. Extreme unction. Displacing the meaning of things. Privileging subcutaneous information. Deciphering the cell of the cloth. The neuralgic and obsessive making is set against the delicacy of what gradually takes shape. Matter is laced and shattered into thousands of particles. Fire is the stripping bare and the glue. Fire is the amnesia of the first form. Pilgrim cells come together like a tribal dance. The convergence of tribes is the archaeology of form. A congregation of trifles founds a new order. An accumulation of heat brings about a painless death: euthanasia. Steeped in the smoke of a censer, emitting codes like will-o'-the-wisps, enticed by the simplicity of the weave, the objects silence their abject past".
Cao Guimarães
Guimarães, Cao. In: Abjeto. Belo Horizonte: Centro Cultural da UFMG, 1994, p. 29.
"At first Rivane made her own voodoo dolls, but she realized that buying them ready-made would better suit the desired potentiation of the materials. Next came the sculptural concern, with the structuring of new forms. Her laces, sewn/burned with incense and hung from the ceiling, turn into a 'penetrable and organic mobile' that recalls a rural trellis of loofahs. Rivane thus works with retrievals from her own past and from a collective memory. They are endless repetitions, like the stitches of a seam, linking her personal experience to a larger web, feminine and baroque".
Celso Fioravante
Fioravante, Celso. Rivane exibe seu barroco mínimo. 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 (plastic, garlic skins, petals), the artist develops a silent resistance to the minute destructions that happen in daily life. Rivane arrives with great boldness and beauty, weaving the memory of 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 into infinity. It is as if the artist were stating that real life consists of the part that is absent. Hence her desire, an insatiable desire for a void that is more metaphysical than intimate".
Lisette Lagnado
Lagnado, Lisette. Imersão no tempo: sobre o trabalho de Rivane Neuenschwander. São Paulo, jun. 1997. Texto traduzido.
Solo Exhibitions
1992 - Belo Horizonte MG - Solo, at Itaugaleria
1992 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Itaugaleria
1996 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Casa Triângulo
1997 - London (England) - Solo, at Stephen Friedman Gallery
1999 - London (England) - Solo, at Stephen Friedman Gallery
2000 - Dublin (Ireland) - Solo, at Douglas Hyde Gallery
2000 - Stockholm (Sweden) - Syndrome: Rivane Neuenschwander, at International Artists Studio Program in Sweden
2000 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Camargo Vilaça
2001 - London (England) - Solo, at Stephen Friedman Gallery
2001 - New York (United States) - Solo, at The Americas Society
2001 - San Antonio (United States) - Solo, at Artpace Foundation
2002 - Belo Horizonte MG - Solo, at MAP
2002 - Paris (France) - Solo, at Palais de Tokyo
2003 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Fortes Vilaça
Group Exhibitions
1989 - Belo Horizonte MG - 21st National Art Salon, at MAP
1989 - Belo Horizonte MG - 8th University Art Salon, at UFMG
1990 - Belo Horizonte MG - 1.000 Metros de Arte [1,000 Meters of Art], at MAP
1990 - Belo Horizonte MG - 22nd National Art Salon, at MAP
1991 - Belo Horizonte MG - 15.000 kg [15,000 kg], at Palácio das Artes
1992 - Belo Horizonte MG - Utopias Contemporâneas [Contemporary Utopias], at Palácio das Artes
1993 - Belo Horizonte MG - A Linha do Espaço [The Line of Space], at Museu Mineiro
1993 - Belo Horizonte MG - Estandartes [Banners], at Parque Municipal
1993 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 13th National Visual Arts Salon - Marc Ferrez Photography Award
1994 - Belo Horizonte MG - Abjeto [Abject], at Centro Cultural da UFMG
1994 - Ouro Preto MG - A Identidade Virtual: a pedra sabão [Virtual Identity: Soapstone], at Museu da Inconfidência
1994 - Porto Alegre RS - Arte Contra Aids [Art Against AIDS], at Margs
1994 - São Paulo SP - Collection 94, at Galeria Casa Triângulo
1994 - São Paulo SP - Imagem Não Virtual [Non-Virtual Image], at Galeria Casa Triângulo
1995 - Belo Horizonte MG - Guaicurus, at Galpão do Centro Cultural da UFMG
1995 - Belo Horizonte MG - Hic Manebimus op Time, at Galeria de Arte Manoel Macedo
1995 - Niterói RJ - Rubinho-Neuenschwander-Freire-Barachini, at Centro de Artes da UFF
1995 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - A Infância Perversa: fábulas sobre a memória e o tempo [Perverse Childhood: Fables on Memory and Time], at MAM/RJ
1995 - Salvador BA - A Infância Perversa: fábulas sobre a memória e o tempo [Perverse Childhood: Fables on Memory and Time], at MAM/BA
1995 - São Paulo SP - Amanhã, Hoje: a Casa Triângulo de 1988 a 1995 [Tomorrow, Today: Casa Triângulo from 1988 to 1995], at MAB Salão Cultural
1996 - Belo Horizonte MG - Cercanias [Surroundings], at Gesto Gráfico
1996 - Buenos Aires (Argentina) - Latino América 96 [Latin America 96], at Museu Nacional de Belas Artes de Buenos Aires
1996 - São Paulo SP - Antarctica Artes com a Folha, at Pavilhão Manoel da Nóbrega
1997 - Istanbul (Turkey) - 5th Istanbul International Biennial
1997 - Johannesburg (South Africa) - 2nd Johannesburg Biennial
1997 - Madrid (Spain) - Arco Contemporary Art Fair, at Recinto Ferial Juan Carlos I
1997 - Sydney (Australia) - Material Immaterial, at The Art Gallery of New South Wales
1998 - New York (United States) - Bili Bidjoka, Los Carpinteros, Rivane Neuenschwander, at New Museum of Contemporary Art
1998 - São Paulo SP - 24th São Paulo International Biennial, at Fundação Bienal
1999 - Berlin (Germany) - Au Dela', at Galerie Klosterfeld
1999 - Aspen (United States) - Powder, at The Aspen Art Museum
1999 - Liverpool (England) - 1st Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art, at Exchange Flags
1999 - Santa Fe (United States) - Looking for a Place, The Third International Biennial
1999 - São Paulo SP - Cotidiano/Arte: O Objeto - Anos 90 [Everyday/Art: The Object - The 1990s], at Itaú Cultural
1999 - Yokohama (Japan) - Luminous Mischief, at Yokohama Portside Gallery
1999 - Bergen (Norway) - Calming The Clouds, at Foundation 3,14
2000 - Buenos Aires (Argentina) - Brasil: plural y singular, at Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires
2000 - Curitiba PR - Imagens em Questão [Images in Question], at Galeria da Caixa Econômica Federal
2000 - Curitiba PR - 12th Curitiba Printmaking Exhibition: Marcas do Corpo, Dobras da Alma [Body Marks, Soul Folds]
2000 - Stockholm (Sweden) - Syndrome: Disappear, at International Artists Studio Program in Sweden
2000 - Limerick (Ireland) - Friends and Neighbors, at Limerick City Gallery of Art
2000 - Madrid (Spain) - No es sólo lo que ves: pervirtiendo el minimalismo [It's Not Only What You See: Perverting Minimalism]
2000 - Osaka (Japan) - Space Experiences: Homage to The National Museum of Art
2000 - Salvador BA - The Quietness of the Earth: Everyday Life, Contemporary Art and Projeto Axé, at MAM/BA
2000 - São Paulo SP - Brasil + 500 Rediscovery Exhibition, at Fundação Bienal
2000 - São Paulo SP - End of the Millennium: The 1990s at the 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 from 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 Anos do Poeta Carlos Drummond de Andrade [100 Years of the Poet Carlos Drummond de Andrade], at Palácio das Artes
2002 - Liverpool (England) - Pot
2002 - Walsall (England) - Vivências [Life Experiences]: Dialogues between the Works of Brazilian Artists from the 1960s to 2002, at New Art Gallery Walsall
2002 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Paths of the Contemporary 1952-2002, at Paço Imperial
2002 - Salvador BA - 27th Panorama of Brazilian Art, at MAM/BA
2002 - São Paulo SP - In Situ: arte e tecnologia [In Situ: Art and Technology], at Instituto Cine Cultural
2002 - São Paulo SP - Paralela, at a warehouse on Avenida Matarazzo
2002 - São Paulo SP - Pot, at Galeria Fortes Vilaça
2002 - São Paulo SP - Rotativa Fase 2 [Rotary Phase 2], at Galeria Fortes Vilaça
2002 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 27th Panorama of Brazilian Art, at MAM/RJ
2003 - Recife PE - Ernesto Neto and Rivane Neuenschwander, at Margs
2003 - São Paulo SP - The New Geometry, at Galeria Fortes Vilaça
2003 - São Paulo SP - Modos de Usar [Ways of Using], at Galeria Vermelho
2003 - Venice (Italy) - 50th Venice Biennale, at Arsenale and Giardini della Biennale
2004 - Belo Horizonte MG - Pampulha, Collected Work: 1943-2003, at MAP
2004 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brazilian Contemporary Art in Rio Collections, at MAM/RJ
2004 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - New Acquisitions 2003: Gilberto Chateaubriand Collection, at MAM/RJ
2004 - São Paulo SP - Summer Bazaar, at Galeria Fortes Vilaça
2004 - São Paulo SP - Derivas [Drifts], at Galeria Vermelho
Source: Itaú Cultural
