Continente -nuvem

Continente-nuvem [Continent-Cloud, 2007] deals primarily with architecture. Not so much with a specific architecture, but with a common architectural element, a translucent ceiling, above which the artist has installed lights and a number of fans that blow continuously on countless Styrofoam balls setting them into constant motion. While the ceiling’s structure presents a grid format like that of a map, the balls’ silhouetted shapes suggest organic abstract forms that invade the map’s geometry, moving around like continents or clouds. It seems like na attempt to measure and contain something that is necessarily in continuous transformation. Like looking at a cloud-strewn sky, we never see it twice the same way – it is fascinating for its elusiveness and fleeting suggestiveness. The installation involves two recurrent themes in the artist’s poetics – the idea of an open artwork and the notion of entropy – but this time coupled with a novel approach to the representation of nature and landscape.This new version was installed in the oldest house (dating from the late 19th century) still standing on the rural land that is the origin of Inhotim. A team of architects specialized in restoration were commissioned to restore the house and conducted a research, recovering original elements of the house and adapting it for this artwork. With its space that is intimist, yet very close to the surrounding gardens, this work proposes an artificial landscape in constant movement. For the gardens nearest the house, the research reclaimed a backyard typical of houses in the Brazilian countryside, with a blend of fruit bearing, ornamental and medicinal species, evoking the taste and customs of that era.