Using Walls, Floors, and Ceilings: Beatriz Milhazes on view at The Jewish Museum

Beatriz Milhazes has created a new series of sculptures for Using Walls, Floors, and Ceilings, which will hang throughout the lobby of the Jewish Museum.

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.