Ernesto Neto’s "Haux Haux" at the Arp Museum

Right at the outset, the powerful aromas of cinnamon, lavender, oregano, close, and curry suggest to visitors that "Haux Haux" is no ordinary museum experience. Currently, the Hans Arp Museum is showcasing the Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto (*1964) in his first solo show in Germany.

Florence Thurmes visited the exhibition for #32.

Joining the art of Hans Arp and Ernesto Neto is their common source of inspiration in nature and their organic, rounded forms. Extending the traditional concept of sculpture, Ernesto Neto creates three-dimensional works and space- filling installations that challenge us visually while making demands on our sense of smell and touch as well: some of these works are physically accessible, and may – and in some cases must – be touched. His Humanóides (the title is Portuguese for “humanoids”), for example, are soft, polyamide bags filled with styrofoam pellets that can be worn by museum visitors like a second skin. Alongside an unfamiliar bodily sensation, their voluptuousness and close fit with the body allows the wearer to experience intensive closeness to the work of art.

Ernesto Neto is known in particular for his white, semitransparent nylon textile objects that are filled with spices or precious stones and suspended from ceilings. These structures, which resemble enormous droplets or expandable membranes, are inserted into the open architecture of Richard Meier’s new building for the Arp Museum, and at times extend throughout two stories. Other sculptures consist of concrete or steel, and oppose any sense of the sensual or organic. In the corner of life, for example, is a steel configuration of curving forms – it is reminiscent of both Alexander Calder and Hans Arp – within which Neto has suspended a hammock.

Also featured in the exhibition are drawings by a Native American artist who has had a considerable influence on Neto’s thinking and artistic practice for a number of years. This is part of the reason why it was important to the artist that his works be consecrated during the exhibition opening in a traditional ceremony performed by a representative of the Huni Kuin nation (whose homeland is in Amazonas in northern Brazil). In the worldview of the Huni Kuin, and in Ernesto Neto’s as well, every human being is an element of nature, that is to say, a part of a whole. In order to arrive at and to preserve a sense of equilibrium, both masculine and feminine energy is summoned and honored through song or through works of art, and the positive element of life enhanced.

The works of Ernesto Neto enjoin us to take our time and to engage intensively with this art, but with its message as well. Essential here is not just that which is seen, but that which can only be sensed or touched as well. Neto’s art allow us to pause for a moment before directing our gaze again at the world outside.

The exhibition "Ernesto Neto. Haux Haux" will be on view until May 25, 2015 at the Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck.