CILDO MEIRELES

CILDO MEIRELES (1948-)

Brazilian artist Cildo Meireles (b.1948) has made some of the most politically telling and aesthetically seductive works in recent art. An important theme in the Brazilian post-war avant-garde, from which Meireles emerged at the end of the 1960s, was the relationship between the body and the mind, the sensual and the cerebral. Meireles, now acknowledged as a key instigator of Conceptual art, has remained true to these concerns, and to a political and ethical viewpoint formed outside the 'cultures of plenty'. At the same time he has become a global artist, making work that deals with issues and experiences that affect us all, whatever our country of origin.

Under the repressive military regime of the late 1960s and early 1970s which controlled the media, Meireles found different ways of reaching the public, stamping bank-notes with seditious slogans and returning them into circulation or stencilling Coke bottles with slogans before sending them back to the bottling plant. Other works play with the sense of space or scale, varying in size from that of a finger-ring to an installation covering 225 metres. His installations are always designed to heighten the awareness of his audience, sometimes by inducing fear, as in Volatile (1980/94), which includes the presence of a naked candle and the smell of natural gas.

Lavishly illustrated, this book includes ten short thematic essays by a stellar cast of international critics as well as new commentaries on each work by the artist, providing an invaluable guide to his work and ideas. It includes essays by Moacir dos Anjos, Guy Brett, Okwui Enwezor, Maarretta Jaukkuri, Bartomeu Marí, Lu Menezes, Suely Rolnik, Sônia Salzstein and Lynn Zelevansky.