Nelson Leirner — Figurativismo abstrato & constructivismo rural — Gabrielle Maubrie Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: March 31 → May 5, 2012

Nelson Leirner began his career among a dynamic group of Brazilian Conceptualists in the early 1960’s with art that was politically pointed and visually sparse. As this show demonstrates, the political edge has stayed sharp even as the work has gained in material density.

Constructivismo rural (rural Constructivism) series, made with those cowskin rugs used by the middle economic or spiritual class to decorate their country houses or their residences in the upscale suburbs. Some of the pieces are cruder ; others, more refined, are prettier : the apparent irony in the former is barely perceptible in the latter, though it is perhaps in the latter that the result is more derisive. Whatever it is, it is a kick in the shin of the middle culture, of the art system and of construtivism (or concretismo), that at least for an instant, tumbles to the ground. I don’t believe that Leirner wanted to awaken the masses and the elite to the aesthetic resources of cowskin and the matérica side of natural art : rather, he was suggesting, once again, that we take a fresh look at sophisticated art (and here it is fitting to remember that in Greek sophisticated means falsified…). More that proposing skin, this is about taking off the skin
After the 80’s, his artistic production was concentrated in the arrangements of manufactured objects. Beyond the “Pop”, this assembly shows faithfully and with irony our global industrial and cultural environment, as “commercial tourism” as “mass commercial tourism”: “even though today my work are not just limited to Brazil, the political problems are still present, this time to the scale of globalization. The commitments are the same. I fight in particular the imperialism of Americans; they take much more than they give, even culturally. (…)
In the “Big Parades” that Nelson composes, are little sculptures from all origins: religious, ritual, media, political, artistic, sports all that can start popular devotees can take place, from “David” of Michelangelo to the seven dwarfs of Disney.

Born in 1932 in Sao Paulo, Brazil