Artist talks rivane neuenschwander at whitechapel gallery
Rivane Neuenschwander (born 1967) is a Brazilian artist. She is known for work that explores language, nature, geography, the passing of time and social interactions. At times her works are interactive, involving viewers in spontaneous and participatory actions. In her installations, films and photographs, Rivane Neuenschwander employs fragile unassuming materials to create aesthetic experiences, a process she describes as "ethereal materialism". “When I was starting off, I was very interested in the ephemeral, in quotidian materials that disappear or are subject to entropy, which is how my art got stuck with labels like ‘ethereal materialism,’" she says about her own work.
Neuenschwander was born in 1967 in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais. She graduated from the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil in 1993 and completed her MFA at the Royal College of Art in London 1998. She is of Swiss descent.
Winner of the Yanghyun Prize in South Korea in 2013 and shortlisted for the Guggenheim Museum’s Hugo Boss Prize in 2004, the artist has exhibited her work internationally throughout the past twenty years. In 2010, the New Museum in New York presented Rivane Neuenschwander: A Day Like Any Other, a survey exhibition that traveled to the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum in St. Louis, followed by the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art in Arizona, Miami Art Museum, and the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin through 2012.
Other solo presentations include shows at Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (MAM-SP) in Brazil (2014), Malmö Konsthall in Sweden (2010), St. Louis Art Museum in Missouri (2007), Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh (2007) Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC (2007), Palais de Tokyo in Paris (2003), the Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis (2002) and Portikus in Frankfurt (2001).
Rivane Neuenschwander has developed a practice within the vein of Brazilian conceptualism, incorporating influences from Brazil's rich history of art movements over the past fifty years. Neuenschwander has become widely regarded for her ephemeral, engaging work that explores narratives about language, nature, geography, the passing of time and social interactions. To do so, the artist frequently employs external forces – both people and natural processes – to produce a series of dynamic, autonomous results. Often her works are interactive, as in Story of an Other (2005), which was created for the 2005 Venice Biennale and shown again in her New York solo début, ‘Other Stories and Stories of Others’. The installation I Wish Your Wish (2003) draws on a tradition at the São Salvador church Nosso Senhor do Bonfim. The work consists of multi-coloured ribbons each stamped with a wish gathered from local residents. Visitors are invited to take a ribbon from the installation, tie it around his or her wrist, and leave it there until it falls off, upon which the wish inscribed on it will come true.
Works can be found in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Tate Modern, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Inhotim Centro de Arte Contemporânea, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, The Israel Museum, Museum of Modern Art in São Paulo, Seattle Art Museum, and the Walker Art Center, among others.
Selected solo exhibitions
2015: Children's Commission 2015: Rivane Neuenschwander, Whitechapel Gallery, London, England; Rivane Neuenschwander: The fever, the sewing box and a ghost, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York, USA
2014: Rivane Neuenschwander: mal-entendidos/misunderstandings, São Paulo Museum of Modern Art, São Paulo, Brazil; Quarta-feira de cinzas/Epilogue, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio, USA
2013: POST - The Order and the Method, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, Denmark
2012: Caos e Ordem, Fabrica ASA, Guimarães, Portugal; The Spiral and The Square. Exercises in Translatability, Trondheim Kunstmuseum, Trondheim, Norway; Galpão Fortes Vilaça, São Paulo, Brazil; Kadist Art Foundation, San Francisco, USA
2011: A Day Like Any Other, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale, Arizona, USA; travelling to Miami Art Museum, Miami, USA, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland; Rivane Neuenschwander und Haegue Yang, Kunsthalle Lingen, Berlin, Germany
2010: A Day Like Any Other, New Museum, New York, USA; travelling to Mildred; Kemper Art Museum, Saint Louis, USA; At a Certain Distance, Malmö Konsthall, Malmö, Sweden; Dominó Caníbal [PAC MURCIA 2010]: Rivane Neuenschwander, Sala Verónicas, Murcia, Spain
2008: Rivane Neuenschwander: Suspension Point, South London Gallery, London, England; Rivane Neuenschwander, Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, England
2007: Coisa de Ninguém. Coisa de Todos, Galeria Fortes Vilaça, São Paulo, Brazil; Forum 60, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, USA; Black Box, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C, USA; Eu desejo o seu desejo/ I wish your wish, Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Beirut, Lebanon; Joe Carioca, St. Louis Art Museum, Missouri, USA
2006: Other Stories and Stories of Others, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York, USA
2005: Galerie Klosterfelde, Berlin, Germany
2004: Currents 93: Rivane Neuenschwander, St Louis Art Museum, Gallery 337, Missouri, USA
2003: Eu Desejo o seu Desejo, Galeria Fortes Vilaça, São Paulo, Brazil; Superficial Resemblance, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France; Aloisio Magalhaes Modern Art Museum, Recife, Brazil
2002: To/From: Rivane Neuenschwander, Walker Arts Center, Minneapolis, USA (catalogue); Museu de Arte da Pampulha, Belo Horizonte, Brazil; Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, England
2001: Spell, Portikus, Frankfurt, Germany, (catalogue); The Americas Society, New York, USA, (brochure); Artpace Foundation, San Antonio, Texas, USA
2000: Syndrome, IASPIS, International Artists Studio Program, Stockholm, Sweden (brochure); Galeria Fortes Vilaça, São Paulo, Brazil; Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin, Ireland
1999: Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, England
1997: Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, England
1996: Casa Triângulo, São Paulo, Brazil
1992; Itaú Galeria, Belo Horizonte, Brazil; Itaú Galeria, São Paulo, Brazil
Selected group exhibitions
2016: Fear Nothing, She Says, Museo Nacional de Escultura Valladolid, Valladolid, Spain; The Campaign for Art: Contemporary Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, USA
2015-2016: Scenes for a New Heritage: Contemporary Art from the Collection, Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA; Fear Nothing, she says, Museo Nacional de Escultura, Valladoli, Spain
2015: Twentieth Anniversary Exhibition, Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, England (catalogue); Images Moving Out Onto Space, Tate St. Ives, Cornwall, UK
2014-2015: What makes a home? National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark
Huna, Hunak/ Here, There, Al Riwaq Exhibition Space, Doha, Qatar
2014: Imagine Brasil, Musée d'Art Contemporain de Lyon, Lyon, France; touring to DHC/Art, Montreal, Canada; do it, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia
2013- 2014: Permission to Be Global, Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, Miami, USA; travelled to Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Massachusetts, USA; Inhabiting Time, Museo Jumex, Mexico City, Mexico
2013: More Love: Art, Politics and Sharing Since the 1990s, Cheekwood, Nashville, USA; Imagine Brazil, Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo, Norway
2012-2013: Planos de Fuga - Uma Exposicao em Obras, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, São Paulo, Brazil; The Unspecific Index, curated by Erin Sickler, 601 Artspace, New York, USA
2012: Explosion! Painting as Action, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden; Mexico: Expected/Unexpected, Katzen Arts Centre, Washington D.C., USA
2011-2012: The Spiral and the Square. Exercises in Translatability, Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm, Sweden
2011: Paradise Lost, Istanbul Museum of Art, Istanbul, Turkey (catalogue); The Luminous Interval, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Bilbao, Spain
2010-2011: Keeping it Real: An Exhibition in Four Acts: The D. Daskalopoulos Collection, Whitechapel Gallery, London, England; Twenty First Century: Art in the First Decade, Gallery of Modern Art, Queensland, Australia
2010: Adaptation: Between Species, The Power Plant, Toronto, Canada; Dominó Caníbal, Proyecto de Arte Contemporáneo, Murcia, Spain; SERPENTINE CINEMA: CINACT, The Gate, Serpentine Gallery, London, England
2009 - 2010: After Utopia: A View on Brazilian Contemporary Art, Centro per l'arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato, Italy; Mexico: Expected/Unexpected Current Alliances in Art, Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, Schiedam, Netherlands (catalogue)
2009: Brasil Contemporary, Contemporary Art, Architecture and Visual Culture, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Rivane Neuenschwander, 2a Trienal Poli/Gráfica de San Juan: América Latina y el Caribe, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña Antiguo Arsenal de la Marina Española, San Juan, Puerto Rico (Publication project organised by Jens Hoffman)
2008: Library, UOVO Open Office Berlin, Berlin, Germany; 50 Moons of Saturn, 2ndTorino Triennale, Torino, Italy
2007: Kunstkammer, Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, USA; Collection Display, Idea and Object Wing, Tate Modern, London, England
2006: Water, Water Everywhere..., Contemporary Art Center of Virginia, Virginia Beach, USA (catalogue)
2005: Experiencing Duration, Biennale d'art Contemporain de Lyon, Lyon, France; Ten Year Anniversary Exhibition, Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, England
2004: Artist's Favourites Act II, Institute of Contemporary Art, London, England; Never Never Landscape, Atle Gerhardsen, Berlin, Germany
2003: Land Land! Helen Mirra, Rivane Neuenschwander, Katja Strunz, Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland (catalogue); Happiness: A Survival Guide for Art and Life, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan
2002: poT, II Liverpool Biennal of Contemporary Art, Liverpool, UK
2001: Trans Sexual Express, Centro D'Art Santa Monica, Barcelona, Spain
2000: Friends and Neighbours, Limerick City Gallery of Art, Limerick, Ireland
