Ernesto Neto
Snaking Together Culture and Nature
«The problem in the west is that there is a [division] between culture and nature. Once we bridge this gap, we’ll have a stronger relationship with nature.»
As a child, Ernesto Neto dreamed of becoming an astronaut. After art emerged as his vocational calling instead, the 60-year-old Brazilian artist began exploring ideas about nature and the Earth in sculptures and installations. Formally inspired by avant-garde artists such as Hélio Oiticica and Lygia Clark, his colourful, uplifting work created with hand-dyed crochet and textiles has evolved to engage the five senses. His immersive installations also act as places of encounters, appealing to different generations.
Neto is the tenth artist to be given carte blanche by Le Bon Marché, following on from Ai Weiwei, Chiharu Shiota and Prune Nourry, among others. His exhibition, Le La Serpent, reinterprets the Biblical myth of the serpent tempting Eve to eat the apple in the Garden of Eden. In the atrium is a spiralling white crochet snake encircling two brown sculptures representing Adam and Eve, a drop of clay suspended from each of them. On the second floor is a canopied installation jangling with salvaged, multi-coloured bottle tops and wafting with spices where visitors are invited to sit and gather.
Why did you want to interpret the Genesis myth of the serpent encouraging Eve to eat an apple from the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden?
ERNESTO NETO:
I was walking along the beach in Rio de Janeiro two days after Le Bon Marché invited me to do the exhibition. I didn’t know if I’d do it or not. Then this vision came to me, of the serpent drawing the image of infinity around Eve and Adam, and I realised that it was a message for me to do it.
The exhibition is about the idea that 10 years ago, I was talking to my wife and said, “I don’t understand why the serpent is negative, the devil who brought sin.” For the indigenous and many other cultures, the serpent is the link to spirituality, to life and everything else. If the serpent had not talked to Eve about sharing the apple, the divine fruit, with Adam, they would still be in paradise, right? And where would we be? There would be no Lili [my wife], no Neto, no Anna, no Le Bon Marché, no art, no life, no humanity. What I realised in that moment is that the serpent, also in the western tradition, is the mother and father of humanity – the divine force, the big bang that generated energy for our birth.
The problem in the west is that there is a [division] between culture and nature which makes no sense because it’s exactly when the serpent talks to Eve that humanity and culture begin together. Culture is our nature and the serpent is our spiritual connection with nature. If we start to have an understanding of that, we start to have a stronger relationship with nature. We are nature. Every time we say the word “nature’, we put nature outside of us.
By making the serpent white, you’ve attributed innocence to it.
ERNESTO NETO:
I would say that it’s beyond innocence. I think it’s more so that everything has colour. White is an off-colour. So I chose to use white to represent divinity and the force of the supernatural entity, things beyond our human level of knowledge. In my reading of Joseph Campbell, I understood that when Eve and Adam bite the fruit, it’s the birth of time and duality; before there was just energy. Every living thing lives from eating life – the serpent, the monkey, the human being, the mosquito, the alligator, the bacteria. So we cannot say that the serpent is bad. Of course, for the deer, the lion is a bad guy but what we’re talking about is beyond that.
At this time, I need to have softer colours. I want to do natural dying and have the idea of clay because in the [Genesis] story of Adam and Eve, they are made of clay. The movement of the snake has been in my work since the beginning. My drawing in the vitrine of the serpent biting its tail [recalls] work that I made for the first time in 1992/1993.
Can you describe your creative process?
ERNESTO NETO:
It’s all made by hand and dyed with natural materials. We have drawings of the sections but we work with the computer to know where [different parts] should go. It’s not about controlling gravity but dancing with gravity.
You started making crochet in the 1980s. What did this open up for you creatively?
ERNESTO NETO:
At some point in 1984, I went to my grandparents’ house and said, “Grandmother, I’ve been working with textiles for a long time, I want to know how [I can make] a structure. Can you teach me tricot, weaving?” My great aunt on the sofa said, “Weaving, no, you have to learn crochet!” She taught me crochet and I made some sculptures in crochet. After a while, I stopped and began to make sculptures by sewing. I had a big desire to crochet again when I made the Hayward Gallery exhibition [in 2010] and needed something strong to hold [the piece], not just textile. Then I became passionate about crochet again because it opened up my way of working. I didn’t need to have a sewing machine, I could go anywhere and could mix a lot of colours. From a single thread, you can build anything from just one line; that’s very important to me.
You’ve created a convivial space with two islets divided by a river under a crochet canopy jangling with multi-coloured bottle tops, which seems evocative of migration.
ERNESTO NETO:
It represents the colours and different people, cultural objects, design and the elements that we produce. I like the idea of migration. There’s also sound and chanting; every time you press on the button, it activates the chanting. We also have the possibility for people to make drawings and write whatever they want [on a blackboard] because this represents language.
So we have this dance between nature and culture. We have two lands – the land of Adam and the land of Eve – and this river and snake dividing them. The spices hanging down bring the idea of fruit, of life – clover, ginger and cumin.
What led you to start incorporating spices into your work?
ERNESTO NETO:
In 1996, I went to a shop in Rio de Janeiro with a friend of mine who wanted to buy some stuff and got enchanted by the smells and colours. I went back there and bought an amount of turmeric and put it in a stocking. After one week, I couldn’t stand the smell any more. I returned to the shop and bought some clover. Then pepper and cumin. Afterwards, I could live easily with the balance of the smell. Everything that I do is about balance. Balance is an important thing in our life, in our relationships with each other, between different countries, between associations, between you and me.
How would you like visitors to feel in your exhibition?
ERNESTO NETO:
I would like people to feel that they are being hugged, like that, we are almost doing that, very close!
You’ve said that making art is about enchantment. Your work is also about engaging with people and spirituality.
ERNESTO NETO:
Enchantment is very related to engaging with people because enchantment happens in collectiveness. It’s together that we generate energy for enchantment. Enchantment is also about waking up and looking at the world as poetry.
Your work is created to be site-specific yet some pieces travel to different venues. How does the feel of a piece change according to the architecture?
ERNESTO NETO:
A piece of work can be anywhere that has enough space to fit it. I’ve had pieces that have been shown in different places and it’s pretty amazing how the ambience gets in a symbiosis with the piece and gives a new feeling and breath to it, related to the architecture and the place itself.
What happens to an installation like Le La Serpent after the exhibition ends, if it isn’t acquired?
ERNESTO NETO:
It goes to my storage. We call my studio Ateliernave; it’s two connected buildings in Rio de Janeiro and we also rent a storage [facility] for pieces and materials. We need to take care of the babies now; perhaps one day people will want to take care of them for us!
Are you thinking about your legacy and creating a foundation for your work?
ERNESTO NETO:
I’m beginning to think about it but, to be honest with you, the thing that I want to create is an internet site with pictures and texts of all my work. This is very much the spirit of Brazilian people: we want to do things! Conservation and documentation is something that is a bit boring as we are very active. So I need to slow down and work a bit on this documentation and everything. I have a lot of texts, works, drawings and pictures, and I think it’s time to take care of it for the new generation and everybody else.
You’ve had more exhibitions outside Brazil than in your own country. What is the situation like, in terms of the arts, since Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva became president?
ERNESTO NETO:
It’s much better. We had a catastrophic situation with a president that hates art and who was associated with the military. There was almost a coup d’état – they wanted to kill Lula and the vice-president. Lula is doing a lot of work but we’re still not in a safe moment for art and the elevation of humanity, especially with Trump being elected and the right wing growing here and there. We need to go to a different level where we can hold hands and dance together, and really think about where we are going with this beautiful boat named planet Earth.
Your exhibition, Nosso Barco Tambor Terra, created for the MAAT in Lisbon last year, is going to be presented in the nave of the Grand Palais this summer. What will visitors discover?
ERNESTO NETO:
It has drums from all over the world in a forest boat. It’s about where are we going in our boat named planet Earth.
Ernesto Neto: Le La Serpent is at Le Bon Marché until February 23rd, 2025.
Interview by Anna Sansom
Photos: Stéphane Aboudaram
