The New York Times on Americas Society's José Leonilson: Empty Man
The New York Times on Americas Society's José Leonilson: Empty Man
On view through February 3, the exhibition is "a great introduction" to the Brazilian artist's paintings, drawings, and embroidery works.
JOSÉ LEONILSON
Through Feb. 3. Americas Society, 680 Park Avenue, Manhattan; 212-249-8950, as-coa.org.
José Leonilson’s (1957-1993) work is cryptic, coded and often hard to read — even if you understand Portuguese. Like a personal poetry project, the paintings, drawings and embroidery works of this Brazilian artist, who died from AIDS-related causes in 1993, are filled with meandering lines of text and small images: trompe l’oeil scars, foliage, pictograms. Surprisingly, “Empty Man” at the Americas Society is the first solo exhibition in the United States to showcase his work, and it is a great introduction.
Learn more about the exhibition.
Mr. Leonilson’s early pieces fit in very much with a 1980s return to the figure in the work of the famed “three C’s” of Italian painting: Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi and Sandro Chia. Like those artists, Mr. Leonilson painted curious figures in bright flat fields of color, adding bits of language, in keeping with a postmodern era in which semiotics and other theories were central elements in art. Travel and wandering were a constant theme too, as Mr. Leonilson exhibited his work in Europe and toured Amsterdam, Paris and Madrid....
Image credit: José Leonilson Bezerra Dias, Empty Man, 1991, Thread on embroidered linen, 20 7/8 x 14 9/16 in (53 x 37 cm). Família Bezerra Dias/Projeto Leonilson. © Projeto Leonilson
