When I arranged to visit Belo Horizonte with other blogger friends (oi Focus on the World, The Traveler's Chest), I had no idea what I wanted to see in the city.
Matheus and I left the script under the responsibility of Débora, who has lived in the region her entire life, and our only request was that a day be reserved to visit Inhotim. It is a kind of open-air contemporary art museum, where works are displayed in pavilions, galleries and even in the open air in the form of sculptures.
The total area is 750 hectares, but just under 100 of them are open to the public. It's one of those walks where it feels like you're just walking through a gigantic park, until you accidentally bump into some art, rs.
I have already commented in other posts that museums are not very my beach, because I don't understand the subject and soon I get very tired (I think it's a lot of information at once, lol) and I can no longer distinguish the paintings and the authors. Inhotim, on the other hand, energized me from the first gallery we entered.
In addition to the installations being very dynamic, several works are interactive and you accurate participate to understand them. Unlike other museums, where you can just observe, at Inhotim you are in constant movement and feel (or at least eu felt) as if I were part of the works.
I thought it was a must-see for anyone in the Belo Horizonte region, and I recommend adding it to your itinerary if you are going to visit the city. In the next paragraphs, I will give you some tips to make the most of your visit and show you which were my favorite exhibitions.
Tips for visiting Inhotim
when to visit
The Inhotim Institute is open every day of the week, with the exception of Mondays. The ticket price is R$44, however, on Wednesdays entry is free.
This is the day that receives the largest number of visitors, so in high season (like school holidays) it's a good idea to avoid going on Wednesdays. My friends and I, however, went to one at the beginning of May and found it very crowded.
Although the galleries are closed, the rest of the park, as expected, is open air. If the forecast is for rain on the day of your visit, I suggest rescheduling.
Directions
Leaving Belo Horizonte there are two options to visit Inhotim: by car or by bus.
In the first case, it is possible to take the BR-381 route towards Contagem, Betim and São Paulo, or the BR-040 towards Rio de Janeiro. The journey takes around an hour and a half.
The bus route is provided by the company Saritur, and the line to Inhotim leaves from Tuesday to Sunday from the Belo Horizonte bus station. The departure time is unique, at 08:15 am, and the return time is at 16:30 pm (or 17:30 pm on weekends and holidays). A one-way ticket costs R$38,70, while the return ticket costs R$35.
If you are in a group, it is financially worth it to rent a car.. I suggest using Rentcars, a company that compares rates from the main rental companies in the country. With it I managed to find daily rates of R$78 in the city, little more than the round trip price for one person by bus.
Getting to know the park
The Inhotim Institute is home to countless exhibitions, and it is unlikely that you will be able to see them all in just one day. My suggestion is to research in advance which ones interest you most, and create an itinerary around them.
The park is divided between routes pink, yellow and orange. What my friends and I did was start in the yellow one on foot, visiting some galleries like Praça and Cildo Meireles. After visiting everything that interested us in this line, we switched to the rose and went straight to the furthest exhibition, the Sonic Pavilion by Doug Aitken. We went down towards the reception and, when we finished seeing the pink route, we stopped for lunch. After eating, we headed to the orange line.
I consider this a great itinerary, as you start at reception, arrive at the restaurant around lunch time and have the rest of the afternoon to explore the longest route, which is the orange route.
To be able to see so many works in a short period of time, we purchased the park's internal transport service, which costs R$30 per person. There are several pre-determined paths where electric carts circulate and take you from one point to another. Inhotim recommends walking the route, but I found the transport service essential and would buy it again. In addition to saving time, we took the opportunity to rest while waiting for the park vehicles.
Where to eat
In addition to Café das Flores, located at reception, Inhotim also has two restaurants and a burger restaurant. The most famous of them is Tamboril, with international cuisine and an all-you-can-eat buffet for R$79,00 per person.
As we wanted to save money, we chose to have lunch at Oiticica, self-service where the price is R$49/kg. The food was excellent and there were many options for salads, pastas and meats. It is on the pink line, close to reception, and we created our itinerary so that we would be close to this restaurant around noon.
What to bring
The basics of any all-day outdoor trip. Water bottles (there is a water fountain to refill throughout the day), sunglasses, cap and sunscreen.
I also suggest taking some snacks, such as cereal bars or snacks, as the prices inside the park are exorbitant (the cheese bread was so expensive that I erased the price from my memory).
Unmissable Exhibitions at Inhotim
Sonic Pavilion – Doug Aitken
The Sonic Pavilion houses a single work that took five years to complete. His goal was to dig a 200-meter-deep hole in the earth, and then install microphones to listen to the sounds that made the hole. planet emits.
To visitors, the place appears empty except for a small circular opening in the floor. Behind the scenes, however, there is an ultra-modern system that amplifies and equalizes the noises made by the Earth, transmitting them in real time.
It is the furthest gallery from the park, and I consider it one of the most ambitious works there. It is marked on the map with the symbol G10, and is on the pink line. The way there is long, so I recommend you use the internal transport system.
Cildo Meireles Gallery
The two works we saw at Galeria Cildo Meireles were Redshift: Impregnation, Surroundings, Deviation e Through.
The concept of the first was “a room where everything is red“. I confess that when I heard that phrase, the furthest my imagination could go was red walls, but in fact the contrast is based on the opposite. On a white background, the rest of the objects were that color, which made the experience even more shocking.
Yes, Through It is an installation that uses different types of materials, and where the floor is made of broken glass. Visitors are expected to go against their common sense and step in the shards, to walk inside the work.
Both left me feeling uncomfortable but intrigued at the same time. I think that's what art is, right? Rs. It's point G5 on the map and is on the yellow line, a short walk from reception.
Cosmococa Gallery
Perhaps the most interactive among all the exhibitions, the Cosmococa Gallery is made up of five rooms “quasi-cinemas”, which consist of installations that use slide projections to give visitors multi-sensory experiences.
From what Débora explained to us, the author's idea was to simulate the effects that people feel when using drugs. I found the concept interesting, and I was surprised when I entered the first room, as it was full of cushions, and the objective was to jump on them and feel euphoria.
I won't mention what the other rooms are like because I think the surprise is part of getting to know the work, but I say that even those who need a break can enjoy it, rs.
The gallery is marked as G15 on the map, and is on the orange line.
Viewing Machine – Olafur Eliasson
This artist is famous for recreating natural phenomena in an artificial way in his works, and that is what the “Seeing Machine” presents us with.. Based on the kaleidoscope principle, viewers are invited to manipulate the machine to obtain different types of reflections and shapes.
This was the only work I mentioned that I wanted to see because it was the only one I had ever read about (I didn't research it in advance, great blogger). I confess that the physics part went a little unnoticed for me, but I loved seeing the reflections of my friends and even myself. The project description says that the objective is to make visitors “realize yourself“, and I think that ends up happening in a really fun way.
It is also on the orange line, and is the A13 on the map.
Tunga Psychoactive Gallery
I have to admit that I didn't understand anything about the Psicoativa Tunga gallery, but I consider it unmissable anyway. This is because the works are so impactful, with their materials reminiscent of hair, chains and skulls, which was possibly the exhibition that impressed me most.
The artist is one of the most famous on the national scene, but even searching on Wikipedia while I was in front of his work, the concept escaped me. Despite this, I was unable not observe and continue trying to understand or that could be happening there.
I think it's worth a visit to at least appreciate the aesthetics that are so different compared to other works in the park.
This is gallery G21 on the map, but points A1 and G2 are also works by the same artist.
And here are all the tips for visiting Inhotim and the unmissable exhibitions! If you have more time in the region, I recommend reading this post from the Foco do Mundo blog about what to do in Brumadinho!
Do you already know this famous open-air museum? What is your favorite work? 🙂
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