Catalogue documenting
a unique installation born from the colllaboration of two major artists of the twentieth century.
Cildo Meireles and Antoni Muntadas divided the space of the Kunsthalle Marcel Duchamp vertically with a transparent partition. On one side they built a pile of sugar, on the other a pile of salt. The effect is like two mountains touching each other but made of two different materials—both of them, obviously, white. It's a wonderful collaboration referencing friendship, conversation, landscape, humor, walking, climbing, and much else besides.
Published following the eponymous event organized at Cully by the Association Kunsthalle Marcel Duchamp, from March 10 to April 14, 2012.
Cildo Meireles (born 1948 in Rio de Janeiro, where he lives and works) is a
conceptuel artist, installation artist, and sculptor. His works, often large and dense, encourage the viewer's interaction. In 1970 he developed “Insertions Into Ideological Circuits”, a
political art project which aimed to reach a wide audience while avoiding censorship. He was one of the founders of the Experimental Unit of the Museu de Arte Moderna in Rio de Janeiro in 1969, and in 1975 he edited the art magazine
Malasartes. In 2008 he won the Velázquez Visual Arts Prize, presented by the Ministry of Culture of Spain.
Considered one of the most important artists in conceptual and critical art, Antoni Muntadas (born 1942 in Barcelona, lives and works in New York) develops site-specific projects on art, society, and the media, questioning their interactions—whether in terms of systems of power or the relationships between public and private spaces. He creates videos, installations, photographic works, interventions in public spaces, and publications.
Muntadas has taught, led seminars, and given lectures at numerous institutions around the world. In 1977, he was an artist-researcher at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) at MIT in Boston, where he served as a professor from 1984 to 2014. Since 2004, he has taught at the Venice University Institute of Architecture (IUAV).
He has received numerous awards and grants, including the Velázquez Prize for Visual Arts (2009), awarded by the Spanish Ministry of Culture.
His works have been exhibited in major museums. He has also participated in leading international events, such as the 6th and 10th editions of Documenta Kassel (1977, 1997), the Whitney Biennial of American Art (1991), and the 51st Venice Biennale, where he represented Spain (2005). A major retrospective, Muntadas: Entre/Between, was dedicated to him at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid in 2011–2012. In 2025, Muntadas presented a site-specific solo exhibition titled "Lugar Público" at Sesc Pompeia in São Paulo, Brazil. That same year, the Museo Casa de la Moneda in Madrid opened "Sobre/About Asia," which brings together works produced in Asia following more than 25 years of engagement on that continent.
