Galerie Lelong is pleased to announce the first solo exhibition in the United States in ten years by internationally renowned Brazilian artist Cildo Meireles, on view from May 15 through June 27. In addition to the monumental work Amerikkka, new works will be on view for the first time. Meireles’s investigation of ideological, economic, and political systems through sculpture, installation, and sensorial experience forms the cornerstone of his practice, which spans the artist’s extensive forty-year career. The artist will be present for the opening reception on Friday, May 15 from 6-8pm.

The centerpiece of Meireles’s presentation at Galerie Lelong will be Amerikkka (1991/2013), the work’s first presentation in the United States. Transforming the gallery into a powerful, interactive experience, the work places viewers under a free-standing ceiling angled at forty-five degrees that is composed of 40,000 hollow golden bullets set against an intense blue background. Viewers stand upon a base of over 20,000 white wooden eggs set into a red floor. Juxtaposing sharp bullets and fragile eggs, Amerikkka simultaneously creates an uncertain and unsettled environment and calls into question whether the work is opening or closing, and if the threat of the bullets is real or perceived. The triple “K” in the title alludes to the Ku Klux Klan, the far right organization that espouses white supremacy and the use of extreme violence.

Like Amerikkka, Virtual Spaces (1967/2015), one of Meireles’s seminal works, is dependent upon participation and movement by the viewer. This work, in which Meireles looks to Euclidean geometry, is a corner within a corner, an installation trompe l’œil, that highlights the question of that which is virtual versus what is real. Continue Reading..