Permanent Impertinence" Exhibition | Leo Laniado

Leo Laniado shows new paintings at A Estufa

Curated by Silvia Prado Segall, the exhibition brings together
80 works generated by digital tools

A seminal creative, author of a work marked by great artistic freedom, Leo Laniado transits between art and the creative universe of architecture and landscaping, experimenting with colours, pigments, textures and other forms. He has been drawing and colouring since the 1960s and now shares with the public the result of a lifelong search in the exhibition Impertinência Pertinente, a solo show on display from Tuesday, March 22, 2022, at A Estufa. 

Curated by architect Silvia Prado Segall and written by art critic Silvia Meira, the exhibition brings together 80 new works, the result of five intense years of production, in which Leo gave life to more than five thousand drawings generated by digital tools. All works in this exhibition will also be available at NFT.

"It is relevant to note that, despite incorporating a transformation in the media he employs in his artistic creation, Leo Laniado keeps his investigation of the raw matter of pigment colour apparent, as does the line of his drawings," reflects Meira. 

Laniado questions the semantics of colour and evokes the memory of scenes through landscapes, portraits, erotic illustrations that make up the plot of the exhibition. They are drawings in ochre tones, loaded with a lot of history and permeated by "things that were there in the past and are resurfacing, coming back now", as the artist explains. 

 "Marked by the heritage of drawing, by the arrangement of elements that make up the image in the context of formal presentation, their artistic practices make use of varied modes of expression, based on the conventional relations of decorum, elegance and the refinement of beauty, extending into the realm of the sensitive," adds critic Silvia Meira. 

He waited around 50 years to bring his creations to the public and today, at 77, thinks it is a pertinent impertinence to be an artist - a joke that originated the title of the show. He went round and round in various ways until, finally, he embarked on the territory where he believes he really finds himself: art. 

From disquiet to impertinence

Born in Cairo, Egypt, and of Jewish origin, Laniado migrated with his family to Brazil in 1953, at the age of eight, due to the nationalist movement in his home country. Within this historical context, he says he would never have imagined that a Jew could be an artist. 

In Brazil, he studied at an English school, where he stayed until 1958. He won a university scholarship to Columbia University, in the United States, to study economics, but ended up, during this period, coming into increasing contact with art. There, he took part in protests against the Vietnam war and became immersed in the counterculture movement of the artists of the 1970s, an experience that would change his way of seeing the world. 

On his return from New York, Laniado worked in the financial market and later became a partner in a sanitation company. But life would again lead him to the path of art. Newly arrived in Brazil and encouraged by the hope of an end to repression, Laniado found an empty factory shed in Brooklin, São Paulo, available for rent. It was 1978, the country was going through the reprisals of the military dictatorship and was boiling over with agendas related to cultural freedom. It was enough to blossom in Leo the idea of creating a space for exhibitions, studios and artistic residencies. 

Galpão was born there, a project beyond the traditional gallery structure and the relationship between artist and dealer, a bold proposal that aimed to foster the Brazilian art scene. Effervescent and assiduous in the São Paulo artistic and social circuit, Leo Laniado created, then, an interdisciplinary space, a meeting point for artists, musicians and creative people, which would also gain, soon after, a bar and a restaurant. 

At Leo's invitation, the curatorship of the exhibitions was entrusted to the Rio de Janeiro artist and sculptor Ivald Granato and included exhibitions with performances, drawings, paintings, conceptual works and happenings. To mark the inauguration of the space, a group exhibition with names that, at the time, were already emblematic: Amilcar de Castro, Carlos Vergara, Hélio Oiticica, Leon Ferrari, Lina Bo Bardi, Lygia Pape, Tomie Ohtake and Granato himself. 

The Galpão worked as a catalyst for culture and, after Leo felt he had achieved his goal, he moved on to a new project. His restless and vivacious soul led him, this time, to the creation of A Estufa, a proposal that merges architecture and landscaping and plays the role of an incubator of ideas with product innovation and dissemination of culture. Founded initially in Brooklin, it would later move to the Jardins neighbourhood, at Rua Oscar Freire and later to Rua Wisard, 53, in Vila Madalena, where it still operates today.

He also immersed himself in architecture, became a landscape designer and also one of the most recognized names of his generation. He signed emblematic projects such as the Txai Resort in Itacaré, Bahia, besides gardens that complemented the works of renowned architects, such as Aurelio Martinez Flores, Germano Mariutti, Felippe Crescenti and Isay Weinfeld.

Also in the 1990s, he founded Terracor, a unique brand of paints and coatings, which arose from the need to have a perennial coating that would integrate with his works and gardens. His experiments with earth, egg, glue and other natural components earned him the nickname of alchemist paint artist. The brand, which at the beginning had seven colours in its portfolio, is today renowned and has won several awards on the architecture and design circuit.  

Service
"Permanent Impertinence", by Leo Laniado
Location: The Greenhouse
Curator: Silvia Prado Segall
Opening: 22nd March, 7pm
Exhibition period: from 22nd March to 22nd April

Visiting hours: Monday to Friday, from 10am to 6pm. Saturdays, from 10am to 12pm
Address: Rua Wisard, 53, Vila Madalena, São Paulo
Free