LUXURY NOW / ARTISTIC DIVERSITY / INHOTIM: BRAZIL'S ART ASSET

The Instituto Cultural Inhotim, located on 100 acres of Brazilian tropical landscape, harbors a uniquely important and utterly dynamic contemporary art collection.

Marrying art and landscape, the Instituto Cultural Inhotim goes beyond the traditional gallery space and offers a fresh, natural, and expansive context for artistic appreciation.

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Inhotim is unconventional, in the best sense of the word.

Located in a transitional zone of two biomes, surrounded by remnants of the Brazilian savanna in the southeastern state of Brumadinho, it is a haven of biodiversity and botanical research yet concurrently claims a renowned contemporary art collection challenging the notions of context and interdisciplinary approaches in contemporary art.

Before opening in 2004, Brazilian entrepreneur Bernardo Paz expanded his private property 60 km from the capital of Minas Gerais into this botanical garden and museum complex by enlisting landscape artist Roberto Burle Marx.

Inhotim could now be described as one of the greatest curatorial opportunities of our century. Bernard Paz's vision for Inhotim delineated a "specific interest in artists who have ideas that go beyond what a usual private or institutional collection can contain." Chief curator Allan Schwartzman was first to take on the task; a year later artistic director Jochen Volz joined the curating team from Germany, then Brazilian curator Rodrigo Moura. All work together to expand the collection and oversee the biennial exhibitions and development projects.

The result is a collection of some 350 works of art by over 80 artists, approximately 50 percent Brazilian, with four permanent galleries designed to receive the works of Tunga, Adriana Varejao, Colombian artist Doris Salcedo, and Cildo Meireles, who opened his first major retrospective at the Tate Modern London on October 14, 2008. Paramount to Inhotim's curatorial precept is the overall accumulation of experiences, the pace and flow between the works, the garden and the natural landscape. The juxtaposition and contrast between its rich content and context continues to evolve. Here we pose questions to the American, European and Brazilian curators at work.


If you had to describe recent Brazilian art in three words, what would they be?
Moura: Challenging, seductive, intelligent.

What have you learned about Brazilian art by working with Inhotim?
Schwartzman: The way Brazilians have paralleled and diverged from their European lineage is fascinating, especially around the 1950s and '60s. They have fully developed their own identity.

Well over a dozen artists have shifted my view of contemporary art, such senior artists as Cildo Meireles and Tunga, whom we've collected in a meaningful way, and among mid-career artists, Marepe, Rivane Neuenschwander, Damasceno, Soares, Neto and Adriana Varejao.

Rodrigo, since you are the local among fellow curators Allan Schwartzman and Jochen Volz, how does your perspective or previous experience influence the collection?
Moura: I provide most of the Brazilian art expertise involved, but it is a very frank dialogue that constitutes our practice. Since this is a truly international collection, the encounter between the different backgrounds and visions of the different curators provides the necessary dynamic to curate, being Brazilian or foreign art.

What are the advantages of collecting for an institution like Inhotim over a traditional museum?
Schwartzman: First of all, Inhotim is a place, not a space. It is the confluence of a powerful landscape, inspired artists and an enlightened patron.

Half the projects I work on as a consultant are museum-bound, and the major art museums in Paris or New York often struggle, not with the cost of the art, but rather the cost of housing the art. At Inhotim, we are curating for acres, rather than for a building space, so obviously the issue of scale comes into play as an advantage.

Also, museums are ideal environments, without context or identity, and it's very easy to get museum fatigue. At Inhotim, you experience nature and spend a whole day here; it integrates art and environment in an insightful way, unlike any other cultural institution. It offers the breadth of vision and the breadth of scale that are difficult for many urban museums to present. It is such an uncommon opportunity to present art differently.

What are the advantages for artists working at Inhotim?
Volz: I very much believe that the great advantage for an artist working at Inhotim is the different notions of time and space compared to other institutions. Most of our collaborations have developed over several years, without the need to be completed in order to meet given institutional schedules. There is time and support to find the right spot, sense the context of the surrounding landscape, develop a project or a new installation and execute this with all the necessary care.

What medium predominates in the collection so far?
Schwartzman: We collect a lot of video art, curiously enough. It's interesting how these works have greater power when contrasted with the lush landscape outside than if they were in a closed-off urban space. The majority of what we collect is sculpture, video and installation works. The biggest challenge for us is collecting painting.

We are really in search of works from this generation that find a special way to frame the quiet. Something like the Rothko Chapel in Houston or the cycle of paintings by Agnes Martin. A quiet, exquisite experience. There are works that simply make sense in this environment.

What is your vision for the future of Inhotim's art programming? What would you like to develop?
Volz: Inhotim has proven to be not only an evolving destination as a museum but also a perfect production site for artists, and in this sense we are currently installing an infrastructure for a future artist-residency program. Additionally, we are developing several post-graduate programs in collaboration with the universities in Belo Horizonte as well as a large number of educational programs with the surrounding communities. Personally, I find these institutional steps most important to guarantee Inhotim's continuing relevance as a place for artistic reflection.

What artist have you seen thrive or really develop by working at Inhotim?
Volz: Cildo Meireles has made uncountable visits to Inhotim since 2001, working on the production and installation of his pieces in the collection. It is, in fact, the first time that an artist such as Meireles, a central figure in Brazilian art, is able to permanently exhibit three of his major works, which are extremely complex to install and maintain, in perfect conditions: Desvio para o Vermelho (Red Shift) (1967-84), Através (Through) (1983-1989) and Glove Trotter (1991).

What contemporary artist would you like to work with in the future?
Volz: We just started a discussion with the Argentinean Jorge Macchi, which I am very excited about.

What is the major piece at Inhotim that every visitor must see?
Moura: Just to name one, Através, by Cildo Meireles, a maze-like large-scale installation constructed with obstacles of different types hanging from the ceiling. The visitor is invited to walk in glass shreds and to overcome the obstacles – just as in life, sometimes. This is also a very interesting piece to be seen in a garden context like ours.

Is there an artist or art project that has collaborated with the ecological stewardship and preservation programs at Inhotim?
Volz: Since 2005, we have been working with Doug Aitken on a project called the Sonic Pavilion, which is a glass architecture designed by the artist over a 300-meter hole into the earth. Through geological microphones, the sounds of the earth will be transmitted into the pavilion. The project is still to be completed, but it questions quite beautifully our relationship to the earth, to a place and to the specific landscape in Minas Gerais.

Do you find that these two sides – ecology and art – complement each other?
Volz: A multi-layered dialogue between art and nature is Inhotim's unique feature. Since 2005, the natural heritage of Inhotim has been systematically studied, preserved and recuperated through autonomous institutional activities with distinct programs, creating an interdisciplinary structure for Inhotim. Much like natural science, art has always proved its ability to question reality and the unknown.

What is your favorite section of the park?
Moura: In the second half of the 1980s, landscape designer Roberto Burle Marx and our patron Bernardo Paz worked together on the design of a garden area of approximately three acres. With a creek bordering it lengthwise, generous shaded areas, and tall trees alternating with low vegetation, this area of the park constitutes a sort of ground zero for landscape design at Inhotim and influenced the development of the other areas. That's my favorite spot, as it now has a very matured sense. And it's very romantic, as well.

What do people tend not to know about Brazilian art that you think they would be interested in knowing?
Moura: Many artists from the 1960s and '70s still deserve better international recognition and more museum shows, like Artur Barrio, Lygia Pape and Waltercio Caldas.



Rodrigo Moura:

Rodrigo Moura's definition of luxury:
A combination of calm and lust.

If Luxury were:

An object
A very comfortable bed.

A person
Brazilian novelist João Guimarães Rosa (1908-1967).


A moment
The day my daughter Luísa was born.

A place
Minas Gerais.



Instituto Cultural Inhotim
http://www.inhotim.org.br

Cildo Meireles
Tate Modern, October 14, 2008, through January 11, 2009 http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/cildomeireles/default.shtm

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