Guided Tour of José Leonilson: Empty Man with Curator Gabriela Rangel

Admission: Free for Americas Society members; $10 for non-members

Gabriela Rangel, director of Visual Arts at Americas Society, leads a guided tour highlighting key artworks and ephemera from the exhibition, as well as stories about the artist’s community and network in Brazil.

Learn about Americas Society's exhibition José Leonilson: Empty Man, on view September 27–February 3, 2018.

Event Information: Veronica Flom | vflom@as-coa.org | 1-212-277-8367
Media Relations: mediarelations@as-coa.org | 1-212-277-8333
Membership Information: as-coa.org/CulturalCircle | membership@as-coa.org

Image: José Leonilson Bezerra Dias, As ruas da cidade [The City Streets}, C. 1988, Acrylic paint on unstretched canvas, Collection of Charlo Whately, @ Projeto Leonilson

About the Artist

Born in Fortaleza in 1957, Leonilson studied at the Escola Pan-Americana de Arte and the Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado (FAAP) in São Paulo. A participant in the generation defining exhibition, Como vai você, Geração 80? (How Are You, Generation 80?), he emerged as a seminal figure of the Brazilian contemporary art world during this decade. Over the course of his career Leonilson traveled extensively throughout Europe, and his paintings, drawings, and installations were featured in solo and group shows in France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, in addition to many exhibitions held in Brazil. In 1991, the artist tested positive for HIV. This diagnosis compelled a decisive shift in his career, as Leonilson began to develop his intimate embroideries, a practice he continued until his death in 1993 at the age of 36. Artworks by Leonilson are today included in such major public and private collections as the Centre National d’Art et de Culture Georges-Pompidou; the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Barcelona; the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate Modern, London; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, among others.