Rivane Neuenschwander: The Reading Box, The Moon, Misfortunes and Crimes

About

‘The Reading Box, The Moon, Misfortunes and Crimes’ will be Brazilian artist Rivane
Neuenschwander’s fifth exhibition at Stephen Friedman Gallery. The exhibition will
include new site-specific installations, projections and paintings. Neuenschwander’s
unique practice draws on the history of Latin American conceptualism, using chance
and collaboration to investigate phenomena that lie just outside our collective field of
vision. She approaches her work with a sense of plurality and openness towards both
material and media. Each work begins with a particular cultural idea – a game, a
religious offering or a memory – that is then dissected and reborn in Neuenschwander’s
work. Seen together, these works examine broad themes in politics, current affairs and
Brazilian culture. With fervent and analytical curiosity, the artist continues her uniquely
humanist project in which local scenarios and global ideas come together in powerfully
engaging works.
The exhibition will include a group of new paintings that reimagine Latin American ‘exvotos’
in Neuenschwander’s simple and striking style. Traditionally these votive offerings
tell a story through narrative iconography, and are dedicated to a saint to commemorate
an event or in hope of a wish being fulfilled.
Another gallery will be dominated by a new installation that draws on the 1970’s edition
of the popular strategy game known as ‘Risk’ in the United Kingdom. Hand-sewn flags
will criss-cross the gallery, each corresponding to a territory as shown in the game.
Further to this, one room will be thrown into darkness. On entering the room the viewer
will be met with fleeting illustrations of monsters, outlined in bright white, that appear
from all directions.
Neuenschwander approaches her art with a sense of plurality and openness towards
media and materials. “She is not a sculptor, but she uses materials to understand form
and space. She is not a painter, but she creates graphic surfaces that carry meaning and
interact with concepts as images. She is not a photographer or filmmaker, but she relies on
the mechanical lens of the camera to disrupt subjectivity” (Yasmil Raymond 2010).
Regardless of medium, Neuenschwander employs simple frameworks and materials to
convey complex ideas. Similarly she rejects art historical definitions of her work. Rather
she follows an impulse to chronicle “the permanent state of transformation” of things.
Neuenschwander has long been interested in systems of understanding such as time,
language, maps and geography. These common codes are often not able to take into
account uncertain discourses and so leave a gap in understanding, a notion that is
present in all of these new works.
The nature of Neuenschwander’s enquiries have lead her to often include external forces
– people, animals, nature – in determining the outcome of an artwork. The relationship
between the process, creator and material is non hierarchical and the spectator often
becomes an integral part of the work itself. In this way she problematizes her own
authorship by relying on chance to disrupt systems of certainty and order.
Neuenschwander says: “there is no language without lapse, no communication without
mistake, no alphabet without gap, no theory without fantasy, no memory without
oblivion”. These new works come together to investigate the codes we use to understand
culture and geography, and in doing so present a nuanced critique of politics and the
state of the world.
Rivane Neuenschwander was born in 1967 in Brazil. She lives and works in São Paulo,
Brazil.
Gallery hours: Tuesday to Friday, 10am - 6pm and Saturday, 11am - 5pm
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