Emanuele Coccia analyzes Ernesto Neto's artistic practice and its profound relationship to the body, the senses, the environment and the wider community.
On the occasion of the exhibition Mentre la vita ci respira – SoPolpoVit'EreticoLe, Emanuele Coccia provides a commentary on the practice of the artist Ernesto Neto and the latter's transformation of the exhibition space into a piece of living architecture, a place of interaction that seeks the participation of the viewer so as to engender a profound link between body, environment, and wider community. Coccia explores the potential of Neto's artistic practice, in which the aesthetic engagement is partially mediated through the use of senses, including smell, that are all too often neglected in the act of aesthetic engagement and are here called upon to reawaken deep-seated memories and emotions.
After Rachel Whiteread by Angelo Antonio Moroni and Pietro Roberto Goisis and Sonia Boyce by Brandon LaBelle,Art on Earth is the third book in a series of short essay collections inspired by the site-specific art projects specially conceived for GAMeC at Palazzo della Ragione, a symbolic, time-honored location within the city of Bergamo that embodies the values of community life and participation. The artist was asked to name an author who interests her—be it a researcher, a philosopher or a scholar—and whose thinking could be said to underpin the project, with a view to finding a path through the complexities of the present day, starting from the work produced but without necessarily lingering on it.
Emanuele Coccia (born 1976) is an Italian-born philosopher and lecturer at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales, whose work offers an original and innovative reflection on life. With Emmanuel Alloa, Emanuele Quinz and Antonio Somaini, he co-directs the Médias/Théories series at Les presses du réel.
Through his formal vocabulary, Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto (born 1964, Rio de Janeiro, where he lives and works) engages with the idea of social interaction. Neto has gained acclaim for his large experimental environments that dramatically alter our surroundings, engage all the senses, and invite to interact. The deliberate choice of materials, the simultaneity of internal and external structures, the contrast between the organic and the mechanic, along with sensuality are all phenomena involved in his works. Ernesto Neto's installations draw on the lessonsof minimalist sculpture, New Brazilian Objectivity of the 1960's and 70's, and the anthropomorphic architecture, removing the visitor from the assault and grind of the everyday world and providing an opportunity to slow down and reconnect with essential multisensory experiences. Constantly opening new formal and conceptual developments in his work, Ernesto Neto describes sculpture as a living organism transgressing all limitations.
