Cildo Meireles, 1948-
By Kayleigh Wiseman
Insertions into Ideological Circuits Project, 1970, ink on banknote
Cildo Meireles, celebrating his seventy-sixth birthday this Friday, continues to craft thought provoking art installations which both captivate his native Brazilian participants and still resonate on a global scale. Meireles’ large-scale productions have expressed his stance against political oppression in Brazil and the effectiveness of his art is heavily reliant on the active participation and encouragement of the viewers.
Meireles was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1948 and showed interest in drawing and animations from a young age. His father was a protection officer for the Brazilian indigenous population, which led Meireles to spend most of his childhood travelling around rural Brazil. This experience served as a source of inspiration for Meireles and greatly influenced his creative journey, as well as his political position, as he was so accustomed to witnessing the marginalisation and abuse of the indigenous population at the hands of the government. When he was ten years old, the Meireles family moved to the new capital of Brasilia. During this time, Meireles witnessed the growth and development of Oscar Niemeyer's modern utopian vision for the new Brazilian capital. The vision was one of order, progress, and unity for the entire nation.
Meireles’ dream of studying filmmaking at university faded as quickly as the illusion of Brazil as a modern utopia. Meireles abandoned drawing and amination in favour of the construction and design of installation pieces and conceptual art. This career shift coincided with the political instability that followed the military coup of 1964. Meireles’ production of situational and political art was received at a time of government censorship and control over the media, arts, and cultural scene of Brazil.
Drawing comparisons with the Dada Movement, Meireles found ironic and subversive methods which were subtle enough to expose his art to the general public. An excellent example of this is Meireles' political art project, Insertions Into Ideological Circuits, from 1970-76. The project reached a wide audience and avoided censorship by stamping counter-information, anti-imperialist, and anticapitalistic messages on Coca-Cola bottles and Brazilian currency. Meireles inserted what were physically the same items into the pre-existing system but had ideologically altered the item to counteract the original system without attracting too many negative consequences.
During the late 1960s, Meireles’ met and discovered the work of Hélio Oiticica and Lygia Clark. They formed the Brazilian Neo-Concrete movement together and declared in their published manifesto that they aimed to blur the boundaries between art and life. As such, the movement as a whole was focused on creating artworks in response to the current political and social situation.
Meireles’ key works include Red Shift (1967-84), Southern Cross (1969-70), Through (1983- 89), and Babel (2001). A retrospective exhibition of his work took place at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York in 1995 and a further exhibition of Meireles’ work took place at the Tate Modern in 2008. Meireles is currently based in Rio de Janeiro and continues to produce engaging work no matter the change in context around him.
Bibliography
Farmer, John Alan. “Through the Labyrinth: An Interview with Cildo Meireles.” Art Journal 59, no. 3 (2000): 34–43. https://doi.org/10.2307/778026.
Maroja, Camila. “Red Shift: Cildo Meireles and the Definition of the Political-Conceptual.” ARTMargins 5, no. 1 (February 2016): 30–58. https://doi.org/10.1162/artm_a_00131.
“Who Is Cildo Meireles?” Tate. Accessed February 5, 2024. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/cildo-meireles-6633/who-is-cildo-meireles.