Using Walls, Floors, and Ceilings: Beatriz Milhazes

Milhazes’ new works are inspired by the annual celebration of carnival in her native Brazil.  Each object is composed of the ephemeral, brightly colored, and reflective materials used to decorate carnival floats, and Milhazes collaborated with float fabricators to realize the works. Refracting light and the movement of visitors beneath the sculptures’ incredibly light, dangling tendrils, brings them to life.

Using Walls, Floors, and Ceilings is a series of artist commissions at the Jewish Museum. Initiated in 2013, artists from around the globe have been invited to create new art or adapt a work for placement in the entrance lobby. The project builds upon Using Walls, a 1970 exhibition of commissioned artworks installed both within and beyond the gallery space of the Museum’s Warburg Mansion.

Using Walls, Floors, and Ceilings: Beatriz Milhazes is organized by Kelly Taxter, Associate Curator and Jens Hoffmann, Director of Special Exhibitions and Public Programs.

#BeatrizMilhazes

In the Press
“Gamboa II” fills the lobby with the exuberance of Carnival.”
— The Wall Street Journal

About Lobby Artist Commissions

Since 2013, artists from around the globe have been invited to create new art or adapt a work for placement in the entrance lobby. The project builds upon Using Walls, a 1970 exhibition of commissioned artworks installed both within and beyond the gallery space of the Museum’s Warburg Mansion. That series, curated by Susan Tumarkin Goodman, began with the premise that the wall is not just a surface on which to display a work of art, but can be a component of it. Among the participating artists were Sol LeWitt, Robert Ryman, Richard Tuttle, Mel Bochner, and Richard Artschwager.

This exhibition series is organized by Kelly Taxter, the Barnett and Annalee Newman Curator of Contemporary Art, The Jewish Museum.