IRAN DO ESPÍRITO SANTO was born in Mococa, Brazil, in 1963, and is one of Brazil’s most highly regarded contemporary artists. Today, Santo lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil. He is well known for his austere and opulent drawings, wall paintings, and sculptors. Often working on an elaborate scale, Santo supports the Minimalist doctrine of non-objectivity through his large, abstract sculptures of everyday objects that he disorients the size and idea of through his use of surrealism. If one were to give him, say, a circular mirror, he would reflect on the object’s properties of material and shape. Then, he would transform the once mundane object into something sensual, yet Minimalistic at the same time. Santo’s background in photography is clearly apparent in the way he constructs his works as a photographer constructs her images. Also setting him apart is his preference to use incongruous materials, such as copper, glass, granite and stone for his pieces. Santo’s sculptures tend to strip away the irrelevant details of objects, leaving the essential line and forms of the things highly emphasized. In all of his works, Santo implements illusionistic devices to add to the object’s noteworthiness.

In the last twenty years, Santo’s works have been exhibited widely in various museums and galleries around the world. In the United States Santo has displays in museums such as the Museum of Modern Art – both in New York and San Francisco; – and the Museum of Contemporary Art, in San Diego. Santo’s works have also been included in the following museums: the Venice Biennale; the Bienel de São Paulo; the Istanbul Biennal; and the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo.

PLAYGROUND, commissioned by the Public Art Fund, is located at the Doris C. Freedman Plaza in the entrance of Central Park, at the intersection of 60th Street & 5th Avenue. This piece is Iran do Espírito Santo’s first public installation in the United States and it will be on show until February 16, 2014. Playground is a part of the Public Art Fund project, “Square Pegs, Round Holes: From White Cube to Public Sphere.” A first glance of Santo’s creation will bring the viewer to think: “this looks like a massive cube made from large stone blocks, with a number of blocks missing at the corners.” This art form; however, is more complex than this. A closer examination of the sculpture reveals that the work was not constructed out of separate, individual elements, but rather created through a stone-like concrete, as a unified form. The “mortar” between the blocks is not actually mortar, for it has exactly the same look, texture and finish as the “blocks” themselves. Thus, the visibly, supposedly “missing” corner pieces were never actually there; and therefore, the openings were deliberately composed by the artist, perhaps to allow transparency and access to the interior space of the artwork.

Playground is described by its creator – Do Espírito Santo – as a sort of “idealized ruin” that is a type of metaphorical playground. Santo admits that he loved to play with building blocks as a child, and given Playground’s architectural materials and oversized scale, Playground can thus been as a sort of blown up cartoon image of a young one’s fantasy structure. In addition to this, Santo has also “created a subtle, yet elegant, play between perception and reality, construction and destruction, and between idealized form and everyday objects and materials” (Public Art Fund). As previously stated, Santo employs an almost photographic process in his sculptures in the way that he reproduces everyday objects, or concepts, into a new material. His way of encapsulating attention to his pieces through their illusionist qualities is somewhat hypnotic.

Conforming to the theme of the Public Art Fund project, Santo’s cube-like structure resembles that of a gray Lego or Tetris construction. Due to its missing corners, Playground appears unfinished. However, these missing cubes allow visitors the ability to walk inside, and create uniquely framed views of the surrounding area for those looking from the inside out. These missing pieces allow a seamlessly changing relationship between light and space, which plays with an observer’s perception. Exclusively placed on the edge of Central Park, where many children go, Santo’s piece is very popular to kids possessing imaginative minds, such as Santo’s. Observing the artwork, a bystander will witness that the majority of people who inspect the piece thoroughly, and examine the inside of the structure, are children who are most likely viewing Playground as Santo does: an “idealized ruin” and a blown up cartoon image of a young one’s fantasy structure. Playground is a very fun, thought-provoking, perception-changing work of art.