LARGO DAS ARTES: DAY 69

Today I visited all day the Instituto de Arte Contemporanea Inhotim. It was stunning. 21 contemporary galleries plus several open air sculptures surrounded by beautiful gardens and architecture. I was at the rodoviario station at 8am to take the bus Saritur that brought me to Inhotim in one hour and half. Along the way there was a relaxing landscape and very interesting typing suburban villages that I photograph from the window including Brumadinho.

When I arrived at Inhotim everything was so green and well kept. I follow all the people in the bus walking in direction of the entrance and once arrived there a long but fast queue was waiting for us. The best part was that once I arrived at the counter I saw another honey sucker just at the window behind the lady that was serving me! A good sign indeed! I started to take photographs of the flowers and decided to take one of that small cars to reach the longest distance.

The first artist I visited was Cristina Iglesias with her piece Vegetation Room Inhotim (2010-2012), a mirrored structure immersed in nature, challenging the visitor perception.

The second galleria Cosmococa by Helio Oiticica including experiments Helio conducted in New York with environments of swimming pool with a smell of clorine, hammocks and Jim Hendrix with a smell of cigarettes, floors with balloons as a sort of immersive spaces between cinema and interaction.

The other gallery Fonte I liked very much was dedicated to the artist that Felippe Moraes suggest me to look at - Alexandre da Cunha - transforming everyday objects in something more profound and aesthetically humorous. It was quite difficult to take photos of them because not allowed to. In particular I liked these warrior arches and arrows made with toilet and window cleaning tools and the stunning plastic glasses resembling to the precious Murano glasses!

I was trilled to visit Rivane Neuenschwander gallery that consisted on ephemeral tiny foam balls moving under the effect of the fans on the top of the ceiling. There is so much in common with Brazilian artists and my work... I was going to work with these pellets at Largo das Artes but then I gave up. 

And then the fantastic gallery Cildo Meireles with the Red room and the layers of different materials including cling wrap I used for one of my project during Honours and the pieces of glasses to walk on it and make noise. The lunar landscape made me laugh as it was so a genial idea made with all sort of balls including soccer ones and a silver textile.

But that one that moved me and made me almost cry was the gallery of Janet Cardiff with Forty Part Motet (2001) interpreting Thomas Tallis composition Spem in alium. Listening to the 8 choirs recorded individually and at different time it was almost a transcendent experience. It was so inspiring for my acoustic installation Entheogen! 

In the past Janet Cardiff and her partner Miller did another massive acoustic installation called Crime Crow with Janet  singing and blending with other atmospheric sounds in the background. It was not allow to photograph but I recorded the entire piece because very inspiring for my work.

At galleria Ligya Pape I saw another stunning installation made by one of the initiator of Lage Parque experimental visual school Maria Paz.

Following the strong work of Adriana Varejao gallery playing with confronting thematics of colonialism and Indio sacred belief in the meaning of birds such as for the honey sucker...

I had the pleasure to visit two works of Olafur Eliasson another of my preferred artists! By Mean Of a Sudden Realisation (1996) and Viewing Machine (2001-2008).

After having visited Gallery True Rouge I went to buy a bottle of water and a bar of milk chocolate to inject energy in my body and to keep on going. Suddenly a group of 4 little monkeys assaulted me jumping in my head/neck and grabbing my hand to steal my chocolate! I was feeling a sort of tender contact with the wild nature but at the same time the pain of the claws into my skin. Nobody knew how to save me so I had this intuition to put the bar of chocolate inside of the jeans pocket. The monkeys couldn't see anymore their target so they run away and I felt relieved!

Another stunning gallery was Galleria Miguel Rio Branco with his confronting photographs of Brazilian prostitutes and street real life plus unique acoustic video installations projected on an interesting translucent fabric. 

After that Doug Aitken amazing architectural building an installation Sonic Pavillon (2008)  recording the sound of the layers of the Earth adjustment at 220 meters deep.

I also plaid with the multiplied images of mirrors and sculptures made by the American artist Mattew Barney. 

A very poetic artist investigating on natural phenomena were Victor Grippo basing his work on a bean of light coming rom the window and inspired by a poem of Salvatore Quasimodo: "Everyone is alone on the heart of the earth. Pierced by a ray of the sun: And suddenly its evening".  The other artist based his work on an observation of foam contrasting ephemerality versus stability.

Helio Oiticica had another strategic sculptural piece of resistance in open air, very colourful and reflecting into the lake.

I ended my tour with Yayoi Kusama artwork with silver balls floating and moving into the water. It reminded me one of the recording of bubbles I did along the creek at home in Sydney and projected into slate for the video installation Resonances, 2013. It was so a good resolution indeed!