April 15 – Inhotim Museum

We were off relatively early for the two-hour drive to the Inhotim Museum. 

Interestingly we passed a large statue of an American Indian woman.  No idea what she was doing here in Brazil.

Along the way we passed a mountain of hematite, a major iron ore source.  Harold said the mountain is protected now but contains a huge iron reserve. 

We had a bathroom stop at a place called British Lake.  When the British took over mining operations the created the lake for boating pleasure.

We saw a lot of Lent trees.  These trees have a beautiful purple blossom and they bloom around Lent, hence the name.  And they were in bloom everywhere.

There was also a lot of termite mounds in some of the fields. 

We arrived at Inhotim right about opening time.  This museum is considered the largest open-air museum in the world.  The collection started in the 1980’s by a local billionaire businessman.  It now has 23 galleries, many specialty gardens, and a wide variety of outdoor art installations.  Some profound and some quite head-scratching.  All of the installations had plaques to explain the rational or inspiration behind the pieces.

We did a lot of walking (16,000+ steps for Mary).  They also had electric golf carts to get you up the mountains to some of the more distant galleries and art.  The walks were beautiful as there was lush, tropical plantings everywhere.  Inhotim has a large collection of palm species and there are a number of small lakes to add visual interest. 

There were a lot of benches around the property.  Each one is carved from a tree trunk or, in some cases, the roots.  They were all carved by the same artist Hugo França.  And they were amazing.

There were a lot of flowers in bloom throughout the grounds.

Even the walkways were works of art.  They were of quartzite pavers and the spaces between the stones were painstakingly filled with small, cut pieces.

One of the areas had a lot of orchids growing on trees.  They had been placed there by a Brazilian orchid group.  This type of orchid,  Cattleya Walkeriana species, faces the risk of extinction in the wild so this was an effort to help preserve them.  They appeared to be thriving.

There was another area, called the Vandario, with hanging orchids.  This type of orchid doesn’t grow on trees but just dangles its roots into the air and the orchid gets all its nutrients and water from the air.  The area is misted several times a day.  And these orchids were beautiful and we could get right up to them.

We also visited a Desert Garden although some of the plants seemed to be not-quite desert plants. 

At one place we heard a major racket in the trees.  There were lots of parrots up there making quite a fuss about something.

The grounds had a huge collection of many types of palm trees, 

many bamboo groves,

and many interesting plant species.

We didn’t hit all the 23 the galleries but here is a selection from a few of those we hit:

Galeria Mata

Galeria True Rouge

Galeria Claudia Andujar (the photographer spent years living with the Yanomami tribe in the Amazon and photographing them and their way of life)

Galeria Obra Em - rather unusual.  The walls in the building were all covered with small, diamond shaped tiles (all yellow except for a small section that was darker).  I assume they were hand affixed to the walls...what a massive undertaking.  

Galeria Adriana Varejao (the artist was one of five or six of the wives of the billionaire founder of the museum).

These walls look three-dimensional but it is actually a smooth, flat wall.  But the tile colors and shapes make the all look like it is rooms you can walk into.

Galeria Miguel Rio Branco.  This one was very dark and the exhibits were hard to see and really weird.  This particular piece was a series of hanging fabrics with images projected on them.

The Geodesic Dome was very interesting.  It had a huge machine used to pull up trees (artificial tree in this case)...

but the most interesting part was the reflection of the art piece and all the people in the panes of the geodesic dome.   

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Video of Geodesic Dome reflections
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More Galeria Art
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Some of the outdoor art installations:

Beam Drop

Over the course of 12 hours, 71 beams collected from junkyards near Belo Horizonte were hoisted by a crane to a height of 45 meters. From above, in a performative act, they were released into a rectangular pool of fresh concrete, which, when hardening, kept the pieces upright.

Untitled by Robert Irwin

The incidence of sunlight, which varies with the passing of the day, pierces the sculpture open to the sky and partially unfolded, promoting games of light and shadow on the floor and walls of the sculpture. Thus, the work highlights perception not only for its formal structure, but also for the phenomena of nature to which it is subject.

Viewing Machine.  What fun.  It is a sort of kaleidoscope.  

Paul 

The Gardens of Inhotim

Mary

Some art can be a head-scratcher.  One often needs to get inside the head of the artist...and that isn't always easy.  So, I decided to copy the description from the museum's website and let you figure it out yourself.  (Remembering that the description is a translation from Portuguese, which could account for any odd phrasing.)

The Pool by Jorge Macchi 

Piscina (2009) is the transposition of one of Jorge Macchi's watercolors into three-dimensional space. Since the mid-1990s, the artist has been drawing everyday objects in fantasy situations or with invented functions.

This is how we see in the work installed at the Inhotim Institute, a swimming pool that resembles a telephone book, with an alphabetical index on the steps of the stairs, inside the water. The difference between the size of the paper and that of the real world, in addition to reinforcing its conceptual power, constitutes one of the main challenges of the work. The encounter between the artist's imagination and the materialization of the invented object also relies on the spectator's physical experience.

The Desert Park (are supposed to be bus stops)

Invention of Color, Penetrable Square

Gui Tuo Bei

Untitled Edgard de Souza

Beehive Bunker

Elevazione

Inmensa

Another Untitled by Edgard de Souza

And another Untitled by Edgard de Souza

Pinocchio Blockhead

Deleite

Enamorados

Narcissus Garden by Yayoi Kusama

This one is rather fun.  These steel balls are highly reflective...notice the reflections in the closeup of the balls.  

When the wind blow is moves the balls around the reeds.  And when the balls hit each other they make sounds.  Unfortunately, the wind was very slight so while some balls moved we didn't get to hear them sing.

Untitled by Amilcar de Castro

The Mahogany Pavilion (the mast of the boat is mahogany so they “planted” the boat upside down to “grow” more mahogany...or something like that)

Untitled Conceicao

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More Inhotim Outdoor Art
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One of the most interesting exhibits was the Sound of Earth.  The Artist had a hole approximately on foot in diameter and 630+ feet deep drilled into a hill.  He outfitted it with microphones and amplifiers and the ceiling of the building was a massive speaker.  And we could hear the sound of the earth.  It was a cross between a low hum and slight rumbles and sometimes we were treated to dynamics...first softer and gradually louder.  Really amazing.  

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Video of Sound of Earth
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With all the nature on the museum grounds it wasn't surprising to see a few birds, 

including some geese at one of the lakes. 

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More Inhotim
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It was a long day with a lot of walking (Mary’s phone registered 16,272 steps today).  But it was very interesting.

Then it was a 2-hour drive to Belo Horizonte.  The hotel is fine but not sure why they put us here.  We are only staying the night and fly out tomorrow for Manaus…and we are an hour away from the airport.  So it will be an extremely early morning wakeup.