Ernesto Neto, one of the major contemporary Brazilian artists, was invited by Fondation Beyeler to create an installation for the Central Station in Zürich, Switzerland.
The title of the artwork is GaiaMotherTree, it’s the biggest public art project of the Fondation Beyeler. It took over four years to make the installation that’s more than 20 meters tall. The installation remind a tree made by ribbons of colored cloth hand-woven that form a gigantic transparent sculpture. A meticulous work for the artist that needed 27 people to accompanied him. To counterbalance the lightness of the ribbons, some bags containing hundreds of kilos of fragrant spices such as turmeric, cumin and black pepper. A work that reflects the Brazilian neo-cretism of the Sixties, but also the poor art movement, especially for the use of materials.
Coinciding with the installation at the Zurich station, the Fondation Beyeler hosts an exhibition in Basel presenting a selection of Neto sculptures from the 1980s and 1990s.
