Leonilson: Now and Opportunities Leonilson

The word games and meticulous images in paintings, drawings, embroideries and installations by Leonilson (José Leonilson Bezerra Dias, Fortaleza, 1957-1993, São Paulo) translate philosophical reflections on his life and the context in which he lives, giving his works autobiographical aspects. More than 300 works and documents that reflect the artist’s subtleties in expressing political, public and intimate perspectives will be exhibited at MASP - Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand, from August 23 to November 17, 2024, during the show Leonilson: Now and Opportunities. 

The exhibition offers a panorama of Leonilson’s production in the last five years of his life, between 1989 and 1993, the artist’s richest and most complex period, which became known as Late Leonilson. Curated by Adriano Pedrosa, artistic director, and with curatorial assistance from Teo Teotonio, the exhibition is divided chronologically into five rooms on the first floor of the museum, each dedicated to one of these last years of work. In the mezzanine, located on the 1st floor, the spotlight is on his illustrations for Barbara Gancia’s behavioral column Talk of the town - o ti-ti-ti da cidade in the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper, as well as the documentary videos Com o oceano inteiro para nadar (1997), directed by Karen Harley, and A paixão de JL (2014), directed by Carlos Nader.

“Leonilson is an artist who is both central and marginal in the history of Brazilian art. Central, because he is the author of an absolutely unavoidable body of work at the end of the 20th century, recognized in countless exhibitions, books and even tattoos. But he is also marginal because, with such a unique body of work, he does not easily fit into the movements and generations of Brazilian art history. Above all, Leonilson is marginal because, at the end of the 1980s in Brazil, he was a gay man and, from mid-1991, he started living with HIV, which gave rise to prejudice and discrimination at the time,” comments Adriano Pedrosa.

The exhibition, which has a master sponsorship from Itaú Unibanco, MASP’s strategic partner, lends its title from the work Agora e as oportunidades (1991). This work, which belongs to the museum’s collection, is one of the artist’s most emblematic. In it you can see a figure that evokes a mythological being, solitary and divided, with four legs and heads, walking in different directions. To the right of the painting, Leonilson has drawn six glasses, under each of which you can read: “the Blacks,” “the homosexuals,” “the Jews,” “the women,” “the cripples,” “the communists,” designations that refer to the social minorities of his time and highlight the political aspect of his production. The work will be exhibited alongside the never-before-seen installation As minorias (1991), which was last exhibited the year it was produced. 

ART-MAKING AS A DIARY

Although he is identified with the so-called 80s Generation in Brazil, his most iconic works were produced at the end of the decade and in the early 1990s. During the last years of his life, Leonilson developed a more poetic work, with an economy of colors and strokes, working essentially with drawings, objects and embroidery. As a kind of diary, the artist made intimate, everyday references to themes such as love, lovers, sexuality, minorities and AIDS – Leonilson discovered he was HIV positive in 1991, when the number of people infected was increasing exponentially. 

“In recent years, my work has become more mature, at the same time as I think more about my sexuality, the way I relate to people, my way of looking at the world, of living day to day. I think the work never stops being personal, it never stops being a diary, even these minority works. [...] I understand the segregation that exists. And I am obviously one of those minorities,” Leonilson said in an interview with Adriano Pedrosa in 1991, published in the exhibition catalog.

The series Os dedicados (1991) was developed for the men with whom he had relationships, with each painting based on the artist’s imagination of a particular lover, inviting the viewer to complement them with their own ideas. The artist continued to produce until his death in 1993 in São Paulo. His last work, Instalação sobre duas figuras (1993), one of the most important of his career, became known for materializing the absence, ethereality and ephemerality of a body in dissolution.

Leonilson: Now and Opportunities is part of MASP’s annual program dedicated to Histories of LGBTQIA+ diversity. This year’s program also includes exhibitions by Gran Fury, Francis Bacon, Mário de Andrade, MASP Renner, Catherine Opie, Lia D Castro, Serigrafistas Queer and the large group show Histories of LGBTQIA+ Diversity.

ABOUT LEONILSON

Leonilson was born in 1957 in Fortaleza, Ceará, and died in 1993 in São Paulo. He held his first solo exhibition, Cartas a um amigo, in 1980, at the Bahia Museum of Modern Art in Salvador. The following year, he made his international debut with the exhibition Cartas al hombre at the Casa do Brasil in Madrid, Spain. Leonilson took part in one of the most emblematic Brazilian exhibitions, Como vai você, Geração 80? in 1984, held at the Parque Lage School of Visual Arts in Rio de Janeiro. In 1985, he exhibited at two Biennials, the Nouvelle Biennale de Paris and the 18th Bienal de São Paulo. In 1990, he inaugurated his solo exhibition at the Centro Cultural São Paulo - CCSP, which was considered openly political because it displayed works with sexual, romantic and erotic content, as well as critical quotes about other artists and productions. Between 1991 and 1993, he illustrated the behavioral column Talk of the town - o ti-ti-ti da cidade, by journalist Barbara Gancia, for Folha de S.Paulo. His work is included in the collections of international institutions such as MoMA, Centre Pompidou, Tate Gallery and LACMA, and national ones such as MASP, MAM São Paulo, MAM Rio and MAC USP.

ACCESSIBILITY

All of MASP’s temporary exhibitions have accessibility features, with free admission for people with disabilities and their companions. Visits are offered in Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) or descriptive language; texts and subtitles are available in enlarged font and audiovisual productions in an easy language, with narration, subtitling and interpretation in Libras that describe and comment on the spaces and works. The content can be used by people with disabilities, school groups, teachers, illiterate people and other interested parties, and is available on the museum’s website and YouTube channel.

CATALOG

On the occasion of the exhibition, two catalogs will be published in Portuguese and English, with images and essays commissioned by key authors for understanding the artist’s production. The publication is organized by Adriano Pedrosa, with assistance from Teo Teotonio, and includes texts by Adriano Pedrosa, Julia Bryan-Wilson, Pablo Lafuente, Miguel Lopez, Irene V. Small, Carlos Eduardo Riccioppo, a biographical note by Teo Teotonio, as well as an interview between Adriano Pedrosa and Leonilson. Designed by Rara Dias and Alexsandro Souza, the catalog has a hardcover edition.

MASP MUSEUM STORE

In dialogue with the exhibition, the MASP Museum Store presents special products by Leonilson, which include bags, magnets, postcards, bookmarks, thermoses and t-shirts, as well as the official exhibition catalog. 

SERVICE INFO

Leonilson: Now and Opportunities

Curated by Adriano Pedrosa, artistic director, MASP, with curatorial assistance from Teo Teotonio

1st floor and mezzanine

Visitation: 8.23.2024 - 11.17.2024

MASP - Assis Chateaubriand Museum of Art of São Paulo

Avenida Paulista, 1578 - Bela Vista

01310-200 São Paulo, SP

Phone: (11) 3149-5959

Hours: Free on Tuesdays and first Thursday of the month; Tuesdays from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. (admission until 7 p.m.); Wednesday to Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. (admission until 5 p.m.); closed on Mondays.

Online booking required via masp.org.br/ingressos

Tickets: R$ 70 (general admission); R$ 35 (seniors and students with ID)