Antonio Dias’ work titled Heart to Crush, 1966.

Muhammad Yusuf, Features Writer

Brazilian artist Antonio Dias’ first solo exhibition in the region opens shortly at Sharjah Art Foundation (SAF, Al Hamriyah Studios, Sept. 28 – Dec. 8). The Search for an Open Enigma presents works that follow Dias’ trajectory from the 1960s until the late 1990s. The exhibition title derives from artist-critic Helio Oiticica’s 1969 analysis of the open-ended nature of Dias’ iconography and the show projects the potent imagery, bold colours and cryptic figuration associated with Dias, who was a prominent figure during the concretist and Tropicalia movements. Tropicalia was a Brazilian artistic movement that arose in the late 1960s. It was characterised by the amalgamation of Brazilian genres, the popular and the avant-garde, Brazilian tradition and foreign traditions and styles. Tropicalia was not only a cultural expression, but a mode of political expression. The tropicalia movement came to fruition at a time when Brazil’s military dictatorship was at its peak. (Wikipedia).

Antonio Dias (1944–2018) continuously transgressed material and conceptual boundaries, tackling complex sociopolitical issues across diverse mediums and his mixed-media works of the early 1960s critique the violent military dictatorship in his home country. Those years saw the artist twist the visual language of Brazilian popular culture and infuse it with commentary on violence and censorship, then prevalent in Brazil. Arriving in Paris in 1966 with a suitcase and some drawings, Dias spent the next decades of his life in self-exile in Europe, first in Milan and later in Cologne. Exposed to Italy’s Arte Povera movement, he found himself drawn towards the ‘non-image’ and conceptualism.

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Arte Povera was an art movement that took place between the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s in Italy.  By using ordinary materials, Arte Povera artists questioned the commodification of art, to reconnect it with everyday life. Dias’ works from the late 1960s to mid-1970s — which form the core of the SAF exhibition — include monochromatic paintings saturated with text; geometric installations, systematically ordered to critique art and society; and performative experiments on Super 8 film.

From the 1980s onwards, Dias produced abstract paintings rendered in metallic pigments, vibrant hues and dynamic formations, while continuing until his passing to develop mixed-media installations, which he imbued with a poignant sense of humour. The versatile and subversive nature of his oeuvre as seen in The Search for an Open Enigma, pays homage to  his individuality. The exhibition is curated by Hoor Al Qasimi, Director of Sharjah Art Foundation, with Reem Sawan, Curatorial Assistant at the Foundation.

  A giant fly as seen in A Fly in My Movie, 1976.

From his first solo show in Rio de Janeiro in 1962 until his death in 2018, Dias insistently challenged the material and conceptual boundaries of painting, video, audio, sculpture, performance, installation, objects and LP. Noted for its intellectual rigour and poetic output, his practice analysed power dynamics and linguistic complexities, while critiquing mass media. Growing up during the military dictatorship in Brazil, he started out as a draftsman and graphic designer, before moving to Paris in 1966, which marked the beginning of his self-exile. From the mid-1970s, he lived between Milan and Rio de Janeiro, while rising to prominence on the international art scene.

Despite his refusal to be associated with any specific movement, his artistic legacy is entwined with the history of prominent movements, including neo-concrete, abstraction, tropicalia and arte povera. Even though Dias always rejected the association with the American Pop art movement, Wikipedia notes that critics and curators have often drawn comparisons between his work and the movement, though he would have none of it. “I always protest when I’m accused of being Pop — it’s not my party - Its images are like any other images,” he is quoted as having said.

In his bio, enciclopedia.itaucultural.org.br underlines Dias’ outstanding innings as an academician, which complemented his art making. In 1992, he became a professor at the International Summer Academy of Fine Arts in Salzburg, Austria. The following year, he taught at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe, Germany, and in 1997, in the postgraduate programme at Ateliers Arnhem in the Netherlands. In 2010, he moved to Rio de Janeiro, where he continued his intense production. He devoted himself to painting, prioritising textures instead of brushstrokes, as well as planes of different colours and sizes, setting aside the figurativeness of his early works.

“In his constant artistic experimentation,” notes enciclopedia.itaucultural, “Dias began to investigate new ways of producing his works. In 1977, he travelled to Nepal and researched paper production techniques, which resulted in a series of large-format works and the publication of the album Trama (1977). The album consists of 11 woodcuts printed on Nepalese paper, produced by local artisans. In 1980, he participated in the 39th Venice Biennale and in 1981, in the 16th Sao Paulo Biennale. It marked the end of the boycott of the Biennale and indicated the political opening in Brazil.

Dias with his constant artistic restlessness, enciclopedia.itaucultural further notes, produces a diverse collection that not only tells the story of the art of a recently modernised Brazil, but is also part of its construction. By questioning traditions and promoting ruptures, he reveals new ways of thinking about art and immortalises himself as one of the great Brazilian painters of the 20th century. Dias’ work has been shown in major solo and group exhibitions, including Venice Biennale (1976, 1999); and documenta, Kassel (1972). They have been collected by Tate Modern and Guggenheim Museum, among others.