New Works at Inhotim
Eleven months after an environmental disaster that culminated in a huge human tragedy, dwellers of Brumadinho get a gift from Instituto Inhotim. In a moment so devoid of hope, Inhotim makes an invite to give value to the lives of people who lost relatives, friends, assets, and work. As response to an event resulting from unbelievable institutional responsibility, the Institute opens new works, reopens galleries, and announces new spaces for permanent installations.
Among new works, highlights are in the show at the Lago (Lake) gallery, where works by David Lamelas from Argentina and installations by Robert Irving and Yayoi Kusama are gathered.
Irving, who is part of the California Light and Space movement, presents Black3 (2018), an installation bordering painting and sculpture by inverting their predominant characters. In Black3, the tridimensional character of space serves painting’s bidimensional character. Visitors circulate among huge see-through canvasses and perceive their own presence slightly reflected on two different paintings mounted on opposed walls in the room. It is like seeing themselves at the same time on a frame of the famous Homage to the Square series (1950-76) by Josef Albers. Although explicit, the homage to the great American master of color is unfortunately a reference restricted to art critics.
Leaving the installation by Irving—who also opens a great open-air work at Inhotim—you enter I’m Here, but Nothing, from 2000, a living room where visitors are lost in light. Yayoi Kusama illuminates the space with black light and scatters metallic adhesives on all surfaces, walls, furniture pieces, and objects, making visitors’ bodies disappear in the space or, as she says, to get “obliterated.” The work is once again a trick by the artist that visitors love!
Another new work is é Yano-A (2019) by Gisela Motta and Leandro Lima, built on a photograph by Claudia Andujar. The photo-installation of a Native People’s cabin in flames refers to another environmental disaster and another human tragedy that are unfortunately incorporated to Brazil’s history but that have recently acquired such horrendous proportion and intensity that cannot continue to be ignored. This is a sharp work, more than necessary at the present moment.
In addition to the new works, Matthew Barney’s De lama lâmina (From Mud a Blade, 2009) reopening excites habitués, myself included. After being closed for restoration for at least a year, the gallery devoted to this work reopens with perfect timing, evoking nature’s power and telluric spirituality in the battle against the logic of destruction that shamelessly imposes itself.
This a great time to visit Inhotim. Brumadinho’s dwellers will thank you.