Cildo Meireles (Rio de Janeiro, 1948), a key figure in conceptual art, has produced some of the most politically revealing, aesthetically seductive and philosophically fascinating works of the last four decades. As an artist, he inherited the legacy of neo-concretism, a Brazilian movement of the late 1950s that rejected the extreme rationalism of geometric abstraction and favoured the creation of more sensorial works, which demanded the participation of the viewer and involved both body and mind. The utopian optimism of the neo-concrete artists dissolved after the coup d’état of 1964, which marked the beginning of an oppressive military regime. This book is a reprint of the catalogue originally published on the occasion of the exhibition of the artist‘s work at the IVAM Centre de Came in 1995. It contains interviews and texts in which the artist reflects on the production process, the materials and the meaning of each of the pieces that made up the exhibition. The cover of the Alias edition differs from that of the original publication at the request of the artist, who preferred to take up the initial proposal of the designers of the catalogue.
“In a way, you become political when you do not have the opportunity to be poetic. I think human beings would certainly prefer to be poetic.” -CM.
