“Leonilson: agora e as oportunidades” at MASP addresses the last years of production of one of the most important Brazilian artists of the 20th century

The unmissable exhibition Leonilson: agora e as oportunidades [Leonilson: Now and Opportunities], curated by Adriano Pedrosa, runs until November 17 at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateubriand (MASP).  One of the most important Brazilian artists of the last decades of the 20th century, Leonilson spoke openly about his affections and conflicts, in a production that ranges from drawing to installation, as well as embroidery and paintings on fabric, so distinctive of his practice.  

The show focuses on Leonilson’s later period, when his poetics took over his daily life and vice versa, and when he was living with the HIV. Writings in notebooks, drawings and sewing were his vehicle for fabulation and personal narrative. For Pedrosa, “Leonilson’s persistent image, through artworks, exhibitions, books, films, theater, and tattoos, is that of a vibrant, multiple, and contradictory anti-hero. There is a bit of him in many of us.”