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What You Need to Know: On view through January 27, 2024, Galerie Lelong and Co. in New York is presenting a “Cildo Meireles: One and Some Chairs / Camouflages.” The exhibition marks the first solo presentation of the artist in New York in over eight years, and his sixth solo with the gallery. Last year, Meireles was awarded the Roswitha Haftmann Prize—the first Latin American artist recipient in the awards history—further codifying his place as one of the most important and influential artists of his generation. The present exhibition features works all created in the past two years, a significant moment as it is the first exhibition in more than 10 years to showcase entirely new and recent work. Many, though, draw from projects initiated in the 1980s and 1990s, creating a throughline in his practice that both followers of his work and those new to it can trace and explore his ongoing commitment to explorations of conceptualism and ideas around perception, reality, and abstract thought.

Why We Like It: Widely considered one of the most significant conceptual artists still working today, Cildo Meireles first garnered attention in the 1960s and ’70s with his work that responded to the social and political milieu of Brazil under dictatorship. Throughout his career, Meireles has maintained a focus on universal themes as collectively experienced, such as political events or upheavals, through sensorial and empathetic means. In “One and Some Chairs / Camouflages,” this approach is as potent as ever, as Meireles mines early works and projects as well as the current moment to craft pieces that create unique phenomenological experiences that the viewer can engage with. Within both the context of Meireles practice and art historically, the unveiling of the artist’s two new series, “One and Some Chairs” and “Camouflages” is an important addition to the tradition and trajectory of conceptual art.

According to the Gallery: “Considered one of the most important living artists from Latin America, Meireles’s work marries conceptual art and immersive installations. This is clearly seen in the work on view in the exhibition ‘One and Some Chairs / Camouflages.’ The idea of a simple chair is deconstructed and reconfigured in physical, geometric, and metaphorical ways, exploring the nature of representation itself. Significant to this show is that it is an entirely new body of work, the first time since our representation of him in 1994 that we’ve been able to show two completely new projects. However, also key in Meireles’s practice is that ideas evolve, and certain concepts are brought out from earlier investigations. These works reference pieces from the late ’60s, Espaços virtuais: Cantos [Virtual Spaces: Corners]. In the Cantos, the elision of space in a corner was prominent, as here, the disappearance of the chair into sawdust and ash is experienced.”—Galerie Lelong and Co. Vice President and Partner Mary Sabbatino

See inside the exhibition and featured works below.

Installation view of “Cildo Meireles: One and Some Chairs / Camouglages” (2023–24). Photo: Thomas Müller. Courtesy of Galerie Lelong and Co., New York.

Installation view of “Cildo Meireles: One and Some Chairs / Camouglages” (2023–24). Photo: Thomas Müller. Courtesy of Galerie Lelong and Co., New York.

Cildo Meireles, detail of Uma a sete cadeiras (One and Seven Chairs) (1997–2023). © Cildo Meireles. Courtesy of Galerie Lelong and Co., New York.

Cildo Meireles, Estudo para cadeira – 1 (Study for Chair – 1) (2022). © Cildo Meireles. Courtesy of Galerie Lelong and Co., New York.

Installation view of “Cildo Meireles: One and Some Chairs / Camouglages” (2023–24). Photo: Thomas Müller. Courtesy of Galerie Lelong and Co., New York.

“Cildo Meireles: One and Some Chairs / Camouflages” is on view at Galerie Lelong and Co., New York, through January 27, 2023.