Campo de batalha: Antonio Henrique Amaral 90 anos: Curated by José Augusto Ribeiro

Casa Triângulo is pleased to present Campo de batalha: Antonio Henrique Amaral 90 anos (Battlefield: Antonio Henrique Amaral 90 Years), the artist’s second solo exhibition at the gallery, commemorating the nine decades since his birth (on August 24, 1935) and in memory of the ten years since his passing (on April 24, 2015). Curated by José Augusto Ribeiro, the exhibition brings together around 50 works — including drawings, prints, and paintings — produced throughout Antonio Henrique's professional career, from 1957 to 2011. This panoramic view aims to highlight how alternating processes of construction and deconstruction of forms energize the artist’s entire body of work — sometimes through the assembly of structures from heterogeneous fragments, other times through the disintegration of unified forms into pieces. The result is a production in constant motion — varied, vigorous, and filled with dynamic imagery — with little room for stillness.

 

The exhibition’s title, Campo de batalha (Battlefield), comes from a series of works Antonio Henrique Amaral created between 1973 and 1976. This group — primarily composed of paintings and drawings — marks the culmination of a period in which the artist focused on the depiction of bananas, a theme he began exploring in 1968 in reference to Brazil’s geopolitical situation. At the time, the country was under U.S. influence during the Cold War and under a military dictatorship established by the 1964 coup d’état, which was also backed by the United States. In Campo de batalha, the bananas, which had already been appearing in Amaral’s work tied or suspended by ropes, begin to appear sliced, pierced by fork tines, and torn apart — sometimes accompanied by knives. Violence thus replaces irreverence and sarcasm in these works, particularly in the way the artist represents the bananas.

 

Through its title, the exhibition also emphasizes that Antonio Henrique made his artistic practice, over nearly 60 years, a kind of battlefield itself: a space where he confronted personal and public matters — his affections, desires, political concerns, thoughts on art and art politics, his confrontations with various artistic movements (expressionism, surrealism, pop art, and cordel woodcuts[1]), and the technical knowledge he accumulated working with different media — in pursuit of a body of work that reflects the intensity and scope of his aspirations.