The launch of the book 'Arte negativa para um país negativo: Antonio Dias entre o Brasil e a Europa' will take place at Nara Roesler São Paulo on Saturday, August 26, from 11am. On the occasion, there will be a conversation between the author of the publication Sérgio Martins and Gustavo Motta.
Exposed to diverse movements such as arte povera, Fluxus, conceptual art and analytical painting, Antonio Dias opts for a unique path: instead of adhering to one trend or another, he poetically explores the tension between the issues that formed him in the midst of the debates of the Rio de Janeiro avant-garde and their inflection in another scenario, strongly marked by both the material culture of consumer society and the hegemony of market relations.
Sérgio Martins discusses the career of artist Antonio Dias between the 1960s and 70s from a transnational perspective, seeking to understand how his work became the stage for a dialog between issues dear to the Brazilian and European neo-avant-gardes, while at the same time taking a critical distance from both.
"One discovers with pleasure, in the course of reading, that this is a remarkable experiment in reflection and writing about contemporary art, in which the mastery of historical culture and the rigor in the exposition of arguments in no way intimidate the dubitative and experimental movement of ideas, in the face of questions that still remain open on the contemporary horizon." - Sônia Salsztein
Learn more about the publication.