Ernesto Neto and the Huni Kuin
25 Jun - 25 Oct 2015
© Ernesto Neto
A Gente se encontra aqui hoje, amanhã em outro lugar. Enquanto isso Deus é Deusa. Santa gravidade, 2003
Polyamide fabric, styrofoam pellets and rice
Overall dimensions approx. 1475 x 470 x 450 cm
A Gente se encontra aqui hoje, amanhã em outro lugar. Enquanto isso Deus é Deusa. Santa gravidade, 2003
Polyamide fabric, styrofoam pellets and rice
Overall dimensions approx. 1475 x 470 x 450 cm
ERNESTO NETO AND THE HUNI KUIN
Aru Kuxipa | Sacred Secret
in collaboration with Kunsthalle Krems
25 June - 25 October 2015
Aru Kuxipa expresses the vision and dream of the Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto and the Amazonian artists, plant masters, and pajés (shamans) of the thirty-seven Jordão Huni Kuin communities to co-create a place of transformation, a zone of encounter and expression, and a site of healing away from their ancestral lands. Sanctioned by a communal decision to come to Vienna and to perform and share within the space of art the Huni Kuin’s sacred forms of expression, art, ritual, and knowledge, the exhibition traces luminous trajectories into our ‘ancestral futures.’ This encounter forged under the sign of the Huni Kuin’s Novo Mundo / Novo Tempo calls for a renewed engagement with and contribution to the world at large, a time of exchange, and a striving for indigenous self-governance and sovereignty.
The exhibition opens with Neto’s major work of 2003 from the TBA21 collection—A Gente se encontra aqui hoje, amanhã em outro lugar. Enquanto isso Deus é Deusa. Santa gravidade (We meet each other today, tomorrow in another place. In the meanwhile, God is Goddess. Saint Gravity)—fashioned from weightless pink and greenish polyamide forms suspended from the ceiling and intertwined in a voluptuous “embrace.” Here and elsewhere, today and tomorrow, the male and female principles, human and divine: all systems of duality are erased and reunited through the principles of love and union. While removing their shoes, visitors are drawn into an inner space of ritual and healing with objects, maracas, feathers, kuripe (blowpipes), kené, weavings, jiboia (snakes), some hanging from the ceiling, others laid out on tables for their use. The spiritual center of the exhibition is demarcated by KupiForesUniXawa (2015), a communal space of gathering, sheltering rituals, celebrations, and immersive contemplation.
Venerated Huni Kuin pajés and artists have participated in the preparation and initiation of the exhibition. They enter into dialogue with Neto’s artistic language through a diversity of experiences, expressions, and forms of knowledge: oral history, music, sounds, drawings, weavings, rituals, herbaria, and everyday objects.
Una Isĩ Kayawa, the “Book of Healing,” embedded diligently in the exhibition, compiles for the first time ever descriptions of the 109 plant species used by the Huni Kuin and their applications in various curative treatments. For the Huni Kuin, plant knowledge and the ontology in which it is imbedded are a mysterium tremendum, an awe-inspiring mystery that must be approached and revealed with the greatest respect and thoughtfulness.
Aru Kuxipa, conceived as Neto’s personal tribute to the Huni Kuin, unfolds as a subtle parcours, which transitions from a space of preparation and initiation to the sacred area of ritual, to a room of study and knowledge, culminating in the community’s multiple voices of myths and songs. Here Neto mobilizes a deep understanding of indigenous wisdom and tradition and the relational and perspectival nature of the Huni Kuin’s world vision. This shared journey marks a crucial extension of concerns that have been evident in his oeuvre over the past twenty years: an appreciation of the sensuality of being, the unity of bodies and nature, the celebration of life, and a search for deeper forms of union and correspondence.
Unfolding in several institutional venues and over two continents, this collaborative exhibition engages with partners in both Austria and Brazil. While the Kunsthalle Krems focuses on a retrospective view of Neto’s nearly two decades of artistic production, TBA21 showcases the artist’s latest explorations and engagements.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a two-day symposium and a series of educational programs at TBA21–Augarten.
The Huni Kuin
Una Isĩ Kayawa
Una Isĩ Kayawa, Book of Healing, produced by the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden Research Institute (IJBRJ) and originally published by Editora Dantes in 2014 in a bilingual edition (Portu-guese and Hatxa Kuĩ languages) compiles descriptions of the 109 species used in indigenous therapies of the Huni Kuin people of the Jordão and Tarauaca River in the state of Acre, Brazil, as well as information about the region of occurrence and forms of treatment. The book was conceived by the pajé Agostinho Manduca Mateus Ĩka Muru, who died shortly before the work was completed and produced (and drawn entirely) by the Huni Kuin people as a representation of their healing philosophies.
Aru Kuxipa | Sacred Secret
in collaboration with Kunsthalle Krems
25 June - 25 October 2015
Aru Kuxipa expresses the vision and dream of the Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto and the Amazonian artists, plant masters, and pajés (shamans) of the thirty-seven Jordão Huni Kuin communities to co-create a place of transformation, a zone of encounter and expression, and a site of healing away from their ancestral lands. Sanctioned by a communal decision to come to Vienna and to perform and share within the space of art the Huni Kuin’s sacred forms of expression, art, ritual, and knowledge, the exhibition traces luminous trajectories into our ‘ancestral futures.’ This encounter forged under the sign of the Huni Kuin’s Novo Mundo / Novo Tempo calls for a renewed engagement with and contribution to the world at large, a time of exchange, and a striving for indigenous self-governance and sovereignty.
The exhibition opens with Neto’s major work of 2003 from the TBA21 collection—A Gente se encontra aqui hoje, amanhã em outro lugar. Enquanto isso Deus é Deusa. Santa gravidade (We meet each other today, tomorrow in another place. In the meanwhile, God is Goddess. Saint Gravity)—fashioned from weightless pink and greenish polyamide forms suspended from the ceiling and intertwined in a voluptuous “embrace.” Here and elsewhere, today and tomorrow, the male and female principles, human and divine: all systems of duality are erased and reunited through the principles of love and union. While removing their shoes, visitors are drawn into an inner space of ritual and healing with objects, maracas, feathers, kuripe (blowpipes), kené, weavings, jiboia (snakes), some hanging from the ceiling, others laid out on tables for their use. The spiritual center of the exhibition is demarcated by KupiForesUniXawa (2015), a communal space of gathering, sheltering rituals, celebrations, and immersive contemplation.
Venerated Huni Kuin pajés and artists have participated in the preparation and initiation of the exhibition. They enter into dialogue with Neto’s artistic language through a diversity of experiences, expressions, and forms of knowledge: oral history, music, sounds, drawings, weavings, rituals, herbaria, and everyday objects.
Una Isĩ Kayawa, the “Book of Healing,” embedded diligently in the exhibition, compiles for the first time ever descriptions of the 109 plant species used by the Huni Kuin and their applications in various curative treatments. For the Huni Kuin, plant knowledge and the ontology in which it is imbedded are a mysterium tremendum, an awe-inspiring mystery that must be approached and revealed with the greatest respect and thoughtfulness.
Aru Kuxipa, conceived as Neto’s personal tribute to the Huni Kuin, unfolds as a subtle parcours, which transitions from a space of preparation and initiation to the sacred area of ritual, to a room of study and knowledge, culminating in the community’s multiple voices of myths and songs. Here Neto mobilizes a deep understanding of indigenous wisdom and tradition and the relational and perspectival nature of the Huni Kuin’s world vision. This shared journey marks a crucial extension of concerns that have been evident in his oeuvre over the past twenty years: an appreciation of the sensuality of being, the unity of bodies and nature, the celebration of life, and a search for deeper forms of union and correspondence.
Unfolding in several institutional venues and over two continents, this collaborative exhibition engages with partners in both Austria and Brazil. While the Kunsthalle Krems focuses on a retrospective view of Neto’s nearly two decades of artistic production, TBA21 showcases the artist’s latest explorations and engagements.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a two-day symposium and a series of educational programs at TBA21–Augarten.
The Huni Kuin
Una Isĩ Kayawa
Una Isĩ Kayawa, Book of Healing, produced by the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden Research Institute (IJBRJ) and originally published by Editora Dantes in 2014 in a bilingual edition (Portu-guese and Hatxa Kuĩ languages) compiles descriptions of the 109 species used in indigenous therapies of the Huni Kuin people of the Jordão and Tarauaca River in the state of Acre, Brazil, as well as information about the region of occurrence and forms of treatment. The book was conceived by the pajé Agostinho Manduca Mateus Ĩka Muru, who died shortly before the work was completed and produced (and drawn entirely) by the Huni Kuin people as a representation of their healing philosophies.