Art@Site www.artatsite.com Giancario Neri Maximo Silencio Rio de Janeiro
Artist:

Giancario Neri

Title:

Maximo Silencio

Year:
2012
Adress:
Praca Paris
Website:
www.instituteforpublicart.org:
Neri's stagings of the piece are frequently uncontroversial, with the emphasis on the sensory experience of the lights. In Rio de Janeiro, however, the project took on a social-activist hue. The artist proposed the location, Praça Paris, a beautiful park designed in the 1920s in the city center. Sponsors of the work, however, worried that the location was too dangerous, with numerous assaults at night, and suggested another park in a more upscale location. Neri, however, insisted the location remain the Praca Paris.
'The result was phenomenal: thousands of people came every night from every part of town and the park turned into a crowded, cheerful and safe place at night for the first time in many years,' says the artist. 'People came in their taxis or fancy cars from the Zona Sul (the rich 'South Side') or with buses and trains from the Zona Norte (the poor 'North Side') while local residents just came walking, many saying they had never set foot in the lived a few hundred yards away.'
The spectacle itself was breathtaking. The installation included 9,000 lights and covered a rolling parkland of nearly 10,000 square feet and including the park's distinctive Art Deco fixtures. The LED lights, constructed from inexpensive, non-digital equipment, cast a pale glow, while the random pulses of light converged into interesting patterns over time.

www.iicrio.esteri.it:
'Em cada local, é uma situaçào diferente. A obra interage diretamente com o espaço', observa o artista. Giancarlo Neri A principal produçào do artista Giancarlo Neri, nascido em Nápoles, Itália, em 1955, é a realizaçào de obras públicas. Ele afirma querer trabalhar para o público. 'Meu trabalho é ir até as pessoas. Esse, para mim, é o verdadeiro conceito de arte pública', diz.
Ele relatou ao crà­tico italiano de arte Achille Bonito Oliva que seu objetivo 'é conseguir provocar a mesma emoçào numa criança de 6 anos, numa cabeleireira de 40, num crargherita, que tem mais de 70 e foi professora da escola primária'.
Giancarlo Neri foi em 1978 para Nova Iorque, onde morou dezenove anos. Foi jogador de futebol, mas depois quis fazer cinema e acabou por estudar arte. Desde seu primeiro trabalho, em 1982, sempre trabalhou com interferências na cidade, na paisagem urbana. Naquela ocasiào, quis interferir nos prédios em frente ao seu apartamento, alterando a paisagem que via de sua janela. Desde entào, dedica-se à  realizaçào de grandes instalações em espaços públicos nos Estados Unidos, no Brasil e na Europa.
Translation:
'In each location, it is in a different situation. Work directly interact with the space,' says the artist. Giancarlo Neri, The main product of the artist Giancarlo Neri, who was born in Naples, Italy, in 1955, it is the completion of the works to the public. He said they would like to work for the public. 'My job is to go out to the people. This, to me, is the very concept of public art,' he says.
He tolalian art, Achille Bonito Oliva, your goal is to be able to trigger the same emotion in a child of 6 years old, a hairdresser from the 40's, a critic of the 60's and my aunt Margaret, who has more of a 70's and worked as a teacher in primary school'.
Giancarlo Neri, was in 1978 in New York city, where he lived for nineteen years. He was a football player, but he wanted to be a film-maker, and eventually studying art. Since her first, in 1982, and worked for noise in the city, to the urban landscape. At this time, I wanted to intervene in the building in front of her apartment, and altering the landscape, he saw from his window. From then on, he devoted himself to the realization of a large-scale installations to public spaces in the United States, Brazil, and Europe.

www.instituteforpublicart.org:
Born in Naples, Neri spent his early career in New York City, and has gained fame for his large-scale sculptures and installations, which often possess a slightly abstract and somewhat threateninguality''his best-known piece is a monument-sized table and chair called The Writer. (He repeated the trope with large illuminated chairs in a 2010 installation.)
Because of its location in a contested space, a park considered too unsafe for public art, Máximo Silêncio em Paris feels like a departure from Neri's more abstract, sensory projects. It makes a significant contribution as a demonstration of the ability of public placemaking projects to break down traditional barriers between communities. While being aesthetically approachable to many different viewers, the work held the potential for transformation.
The primary impact of Máximo Silêncio em Paris is admittedly more a result of happenstance than intention, apart from Neri's refusal to move the work to a 'safer' location. Yet this happenstance is a vital component of public-art projects''when it becomes impossible to predict the responses, critical and appreciative, of the attending audience. Other projects with a direct agenda ofmation might have accomplished more measurable aims, yet Neri's light display caught the viewer off guard and provided a 'sneak attack' on convention.

www.instituteforpublicart.org:
The Italian-based Giancarlo Neri has staged Máximo Silêncio in several locations, including in Rome's Circus Maximus. The installation is deceptively simple. Thousands of LED globe lights, approximately ten inches in diameter, are laid in a carpet on the ground. The lights blink different colors in random patterns through the night, transforming the landscape with their soft glow.
Engaging with the project is a sensory experience. The lights subtly alter the landscape and cause a sense of dislocation''the recognizable landmarks that Neri prefers are transformed and made unfamiliar.