1948, lives and works at Rio de Janeiro

Cildo Meireles is one of the most relevant and original contemporary artists from Brazil. His work is deeply influenced by political and philosophical actions and propositions, with his approach to conceptual art being one of the most significant influences in the field of Brazilian artistic production in recent decades.

Throughout his career, Cildo Meireles has emphasized the necessity and even the vocation of art to step outside institutions and the spaces reserved for it, to occupy and merge with life. The Inserções em Circuitos Ideológicos (1970) series is one of the most successful endeavors in this regard: during the military dictatorship, the artist printed subversive phrases on banknotes and Coca-Cola bottles, reintroducing these objects into everyday circulation.

In his works, Cildo frequently appropriates everyday objects, such as mops, measuring tapes, tables, furniture, needles, and tools, transforming and altering their structures to create situations that question their functionality and the values of use and exchange, proposing new perspectives and meanings for our relationship with reality. Cildo states that the role of art is to be the antidote to the anesthesia that separates the subject from the experience of life.

His installations often carry strong political statements, such as in Desvio para o Vermelho, first shown at the Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro (MAM/RJ) in 1967. Political critique using everyday objects is a recurring theme in his work between 1970 and 1975, as seen in works like Árvore do Dinheiro (1969), Introdução a uma Nova Crítica (1970), and O Sermão da Montanha: Fiat Lux (1973).

Cildo Meireles was the second Brazilian artist to have a retrospective exhibition at the Tate Modern Museum in London, in 2008. The year before, a dedicated exhibition to Hélio Oiticica had been presented.