Cildo Meireles (b. 1948)

Private Collection, São Paulo
Sale: Christie's New York, Important Latin American Paintings, Drawings, Sculpture, and Colonial Works of Art, November 25, 1997, lot 192, illustrated in color
Private Collection, New York

All elements are stable and original to the work. The work is slightly soiled and presents no signs of repair. Otherwise in very good condition.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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A key instigator and quintessential figure of Conceptual art for over forty years, Cildo Meireles' artistic production excels in the materialization of ideas. 

Meireles' approach to Conceptualism has produced, according to Guy Brett, a leading critic of contemporary and Latin American art, a type of "philosophical object" or "materialized thought:" an intellectually rigorous event that is as challenging as it is poetic.

Coming of age in the late 1960s and early 1970s under Brazil's repressive military dictatorship, Meireles' early work testifies to the severe censorship on media and cultural production imposed by the Ato Institucional No. 5 (AI-5). Like other radical young artists working in Rio de Janeiro such as: Antonio Manuel, Artur Barrio, and Antonio Dias, Meireles' production asserts itself in the social scene insinuating itself into everyday experience by attacking deeply held social structures and institutional systems. 

Formulated as counter-ideological discourses, works in this series destabilize perceptual reality. First conceived in 1977, Metros I questions our dependency on an arbitrary system of measurements and our willing submission to them as passive spectators.