In this essay, the critic Ronaldo Brito reviews the experimental installations created by Cildo Meireles, and discusses the constant deconstruction of expectations he finds in the artist’s work. According to Brito, Cildo’s work “dismantles the template of reality” while “rejecting the object.” The defining quality of the result “is not the construction of the work, but rather a flow of communicative debris.” Brito uses the notion of a “ghetto” as a framework through which to muse upon the artist’s pivotal concept of “insertion.”

This essay was published in Cildo Meireles (Rio de Janeiro: Funarte, 1981), a book that was part of the ABC collection (Arte Brasileira Contemporânea). In line with the goals established for those books about the early studies of Brazilian contemporary artists, this was the first monograph about Cildo Meireles to be published.

Cildo Meireles first began to make a name for himself in Brazilian art circles in the 1960s. He began to attract attention in 1969 after his work won a prize at the Salão da Bússola [Compass Salon], an exhibition at the MAM-Rio (Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro). He took part in events such as Do Corpo à Terra (1970), organized by the critic Frederico Morais in Belo Horizonte; see “A geração tranca-ruas” [ICAA digital archive, doc. no. 1110681]. In the mid-1970s, his work was shown at the Sala Experimental del MAM-Rio (Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro); see also “Sala Experimental,” doc. no. 1110602, the essay jointly written by Anna Bella, Ivens Machado, and Paulo Herkenhoff. Cildo Meireles was one of the founders of Malasartes magazine, and was involved in other activities during the course of that decade. He is now one of the major contemporary artists in Brazil, and his work is exhibited at retrospectives organized by important museums in Europe and the United States.

In regard to one of Cildo Meireles’ best-known installations, “Eureka/Blindhotland,” see his own remarks in the ICAA digital archive, doc. no. 1110594. To read other discussions about the works he produced in the 1970s and 1980s, see “Cruzeiro do Sul,” (doc. no. 776747).

The art critic Ronaldo [Correia de] Brito (b. 1951) is one of the most important and influential art critics in Brazil. His essays have been published in books, magazines, and exhibition catalogues. He writes for the newspaper Opinião and was also one of the founders of the magazines Malasartes and Gávea. In the 1970s, he was one of the main instigators of the initiative to re-examine the Neo-Concrete art movement and its legacy to contemporary Brazilian art.