Born in 1964 in Rio de Janeiro, Ernesto Neto is a sculptor and multimedia and installation artist. He studied at Rio’s Escola de artes visuais do Parque Lage in 1994 and again in 1997, as well as at the Museu de arte moderna de São Paulo from 1994 to 1996. He has become well known for his large, immersive environments, which take the form of organic worlds that solicit viewer interaction.

Inspired by the Brazilian Conceptualists Lygia Clark and Hélio Oiticica, as well as Minimalism and Arte Povera, Neto brings a delicate and meditative sensuality to his sculptural landscapes, claiming the human body as an artistic site by encouraging participatory engagement. In 1997, Neto made his first nave (Portuguese, “ship”), filling a cavernous space with hanging sheets of translucent fabric, the interior of which visitors were encouraged to walk through and touch. The use of nylon as a sculptural medium has remained a constant in his work, with subsequent installations growing large enough to accommodate tunnels, discrete rooms, and beds made of Styrofoam pellets. In 2006, Neto created the site-specific installation Léviathan Thot at the Panthéon in Paris. He stretched vast nylon sacks filled with Styrofoam from the monument’s 200-foot-high dome to the floor, introducing a bodily dimension to its neoclassical architecture with his organic forms. The installation earned Neto the rank of Chevalier in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, in acknowledgment of his contribution to French culture.

Speaking of his work in a 2000 interview, Neto said, “I am wrapping air, making atmospheres physical.”¹ Subsequently, he made some of his largest installations, including Anthropodino (2009), for which Neto filled the 55,000 square-foot drill hall of New York’s Park Avenue Armory with tunnels of fabric stretched over wooden replicas of dinosaur bones, giving visitors the irrepressible feeling of traveling inside a body. This experiential environment became even more intensely multisensory with the inclusion of nylon sacks filled with aromatic spices and suspended from the ceiling. With tunnels and grottoes built from bone casts and translucent material, Neto staged intimate encounters that powerfully engaged the visitor’s own physical presence, while the juxtaposition of hard and soft materials reawakened the visitor to the simultaneous strength and fragility of the world.

Neto’s work has been shown in solo exhibitions at the Museu de arte moderna de São Paulo (1992); Museo de arte Carrillo Gil, Mexico City (1998); Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston (1999–2000); Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. (2002); Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (2007); Hayward Gallery, London (2010); and Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas (2012). Together with Vik Muniz, he represented Brazil at the 2001 Venice Biennale. Neto has also been included in group shows at institutions including the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris (2005); National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens (2006); and Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (2007). He lives and works in Rio de Janeiro.