Cildo Meireles (Brazilian b. 1948)

This work is sold with a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist and dated 'Rio, 10 April 2014.

"The Insertions into Ideological Circuits took shape as two projects: the Coca-Cola Project and the Cédula Project with banknotes. The work began with a text I wrote in April 1970 which sets out this position:
1 In society there are certain mechanisms for circulation (circuits).
2 These circuits clearly embody the ideology of the producer, but at the same time they are passive when they receive insertions into the circuits.

3 This occurs when they receive insertions into their circuits.

The Insertions into Ideological Circuits also arose from the recognition of two fairly common practices: chain letters (letters you receive, copy and send on to other people) and messages in bottles, flung into the sea by victims of shipwrecks. Implicit in these practices is the notion of a circulating medium, a notion crystallized most clearly in the case of paper money and metaphorically containers (soft drink bottles, for example).
--Cildo Meireles1

1 As quoted in "Artist's Writings, Insertions into Ideological Circuits 1970-75," Cildo Meireles (London: Phaidon Press Limited, 1999), p. 110.