Webs of Freedom (Malhas da liberdade)

Latin American Contemporary Art
© Cildo Meireles
My gallery Comment Tag Order Photography*
View comments
No comments have been posted yet.
Add a comment
Please log in to add comments.
Enter your LACMA Collections username.
Enter the password that accompanies your username.
New to our collections website? Sign up to create an account and start saving your favorites. Please note that this account is not the same as the MyLACMA account you may have for ticketing and membership transactions.
Current tags
This item has not been tagged yet.
Please log in to add tags.
Enter your LACMA Collections username.
Enter the password that accompanies your username.
New to our collections website? Sign up to create an account and start saving your favorites. Please note that this account is not the same as the MyLACMA account you may have for ticketing and membership transactions.
* Nearly 20,000 images of artworks the museum believes to be in the public domain are available to download on this site. Other images may be protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights. By using any of these images you agree to LACMA's Terms of Use.

Webs of Freedom (Malhas da liberdade)

Brazil, 1976-1998
Sculpture
Iron and glass
59 1/8 × 59 1/8 in. (150.2 × 150.2 cm)
Purchased with funds provided by Cecilia Wong, Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, Carlos and Rosa de la Cruz, and the Modern and Contemporary Art Council (AC1999.13.1.1-.7)
Contemporary Art
Not currently on public view

Curator Notes

Webs of Freedom (Malhas da liberdade) was constructed by using the same linear element repeatedly....
Webs of Freedom (Malhas da liberdade) was constructed by using the same linear element repeatedly. In theory, this work could extend indefinitely across a single plane and continue to grow volumetrically. Separate elements hanging on the wall behind the metal grid represent its alphabet or building blocks. Despite its apparent order, the spiky angularity of the grid, with a rectangular sheet of glass trapped in its structure, has more disturbing connotations. Conceived at the height of Brazil's twenty-year dictatorship (1964-84), the work is an indictment of that regime and a statement about the nature of existence.

Ilona Katzew, 2008
More...

Bibliography

  • Los Angeles County Museum of Art.  New York: Thames and Hudson, 2003.
  • Zelevansky, Lynn, V. L. Hillings, M. Peternák, B. LaBelle, P. Frank, I. Katzenstein, A. Le Blanc.  Beyond Geometry: Experiments in Form, 1940s-70s.  Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2004.