José Leonilson

Critical text

José Leonilson (1957–1993, Sao Paulo) was one of the major exponents of a generation of Brazilian artists known as Geração 80 (80s Generation). Influenced by the Italian Transavanguardia movement, Leonilson’s paintings and drawings from the 1980s show an eclectic subjectivism and an emblematic visual language. When Leonilson was diagnosed with AIDS in 1991, his visual language changed significantly.  Resembling a diary, his oeuvre, usually on sparsely composed unframed canvases, often with text or numbers, nevertheless seems closer to drawing than painting. In the late 1980s Leonilson, whose father was a textile dealer, discovered fabrics and embroidery for himself as an expressive medium. Fine lace is combined with coarse linen, velvet, and awkward text embroidery. Leonilson’s fragile-looking works are touching. With the sincerity of a diary, they negotiate love, strangeness, and the challenges of a life as an outsider. A large number of drawings expresses, among other things, his special interest in fashion. In 1976 the artist designed Vogue Ideal (Fanzine), a Vogue magazine in zine form, in which he critically examined gender attributions, class differences, and marginalized groups to which he felt he belonged. Here you can find the most diverse body shapes, skin colours, offbeat looks, but also symbols like skulls with skeletons or the peace sign. A diversity is playfully depicted that is still missing in many places in the big fashion magazines today.

Text by Bettina Steinbrügge