Rivane Neuenschwander was born in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, in 1967. She earned a BA in fine arts from the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, in 1993 and an MA from the Royal College of Art in London in 1998, where she was artist-in-residence from 1996–98. In her installations, film, and photography, Neuenschwander employs fragile, unassuming materials to create mesmerizing aesthetic experiences, a process she describes as “ethereal materialism.” In Neuenschwander&rsquos film Carta Faminta (Starving Letters, 2001), snails eat intricate shapes into sheets of rice paper, while in Love Lettering (2002), goldfish flit through the bright green and blue environs of a water-filled tank, trailing behind them strips of paper on which are typed words including “sweet,” “my dear,” and “no.” The installation I Wish Your Wish (2003) draws on a tradition at the São Salvador church Nosso Senhor do Bonfim by inviting the viewer to take a ribbon, tie it around his or her wrist, and leave it there until it falls off, upon which the prayer inscribed on it will come true. In her Joe Carioca and Friends (2003), Neuenschwander appropriated a 1941 Disney comic book featuring clichéd portrayals of Brazilians. She painted over the original text in blocks of bright color, maintaining the shapes of the speech bubbles for the viewers to fill in. Neuenschwander has frequently collaborated with filmmaker Cao Guimarães on projects such as Inventory of Small Deaths (Blow) (2000) and Quarta-feira de Cinzas/Epilogue (2006). In the latter, ants carry impossibly large sugar-coated discs of confetti, suggesting that work, consumption, and art making might be entirely synchronous. Neuenschwander’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at venues including Artpace, San Antonio (2001); Portikus, Frankfurt (2001); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2002); Museu de Arte Moderna Aloísio Magalhães, Recife (2003); Saint Louis Art Museum (2004); New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (2010); and Malmö Konsthall, Sweden (2010). The Kunsthalle Lingen, Germany, produced a two-person show with the work of Haegue Yang, which traveled to the Overbeck-Gesellschaft Kunstverein Lubeck, Germany (2011). Neuenschwander has also participated in the group exhibitions Panorama de Arte Brasileira, Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (2001); Land, Land!, Kunsthalle Basel (2003); Tropicália: A Revolution in Brazilian Culture, organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2005); Comic Abstraction, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2007); The Wizard of Oz, CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco (2008); and Yes Naturally, how art saves the world, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, The Hague and Niet Normaal Foundation, Utrecht, Netherlands (2013). She has also participated in the Istanbul Biennial (1997); São Paulo Biennial (1998, 2006, and 2008); Venice Biennale (2003 and 2005); and Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (2008). In 2004, she was shortlisted for the Hugo Boss Prize at the Guggenheim Museum, New York, and in 2013, she was awarded the Yanghyun Prize by the Yanghyun Foundation in South Korea. Neuenschwander lives and works in London and Belo Horizonte. Cao Guimarães was born in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, in 1965. He studied philosophy at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais in Belo Horizonte between 1983 and 1986, and completed an MA in Photographic Studies at the University of Westminster, London. His films, installations, and photographs are powerful arguments against the distinction between fact and fiction in art and film; Guimarães disregards boundaries between genres and challenges viewers to look again at the world around them. In Soul of the Bone (2004), Guimarães documents the everyday reality of a hermit in Brazil to dispel popular notions of this figure as mysterious and solitary. In his award-winning documentary Acidente (Accident, 2006), Guimarães and filmmaker Pablo Lobato examine and reinterpret the names of different Brazilian cities through interaction with local residents. The film documents residents’ daily movements alongside commonplace events in each city to reveal the often-fortuitous nature of everyday happenstance. Guimarães moving pictures, while firmly rooted in the quotidian, evoke the universal. Guimarães has had solo exhibitions at international institutions including Galeria Nara Roesler, Sao Paolo (2004 and 2012); CAB–Centro de Arte Caja de Burgos, Burgos (2007); La Caja Negra, Madrid (2011); and Galerie Anita Beckers, Frankfurt (2013). He has also participated in group exhibitions including the São Paulo Biennial (2004 and 2006); The Desire for Form, Akademie der Künste-Hanseatenweg, Berlin (2010); Turn off the Sun: Selections from la Colección Jumex, Arizona State University Art Museum, Tempe (2013); and Blind Field, Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign (2013). Guimarães’s films have been screened at film festivals including the Rio International Film Festival (2001, 2004, 2005, and 2006), É Tudo Verdade (It’s All True) (2001, 2004, 2005), São Paulo International Film Festival (2004 and 2006), International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam – IDFA (2004), Locarno International Film Festival (2004, 2006, and 2008), Cinema du Réel (2005), Rotterdam International Film Festival (2005 and 2007), Cannes Film Festival (2005), and Sundance Film Festival (2007). He has won awards including “Best Director” at Rio International Film Festival (2007) for Andarilho (Drifter), “Best Film” at the XI Festival do Filme Documentário e Etnográfico (2007), and “Best Film” at the Ninth Festival Internacional de Cine de las Palmas de Gran Canaria (2008). In 2007, he received “Best Iberoamerican Documentary” at the Guadalajara International Film Festival, and in 2013 was again awarded “Best Director” at the Rio International Film Festival for his collaboration with Marcelo Gomes, O Homem das Multidões (The Man of the Crowd). Guimarães lives and works in Belo Horizonte.