Nelson Leirner, the Brazilian artist who took Pop art and conceptualism and infused them with wry political satire, has died. In Maracanã (2003), Leirner recreated a football stadium complete with hundreds of spectators, using toys and statuettes of religious and pop culture figures. The players were made up of a series of eleven Incredible Hulks facing off against a team of Power Rangers. Cheering them on were Buddhas, Jesuses and legions of Roman cavalry. It was, the artist said, a comment on the competing powers of the world: religion and consumer culture, neither of which had the interests of the people at their heart. Likewise in a series of collages depicting the world map, the western countries made up of the image of Mickey Mouse, while cut and pasted images of skeletons depict the developing world. Other works featured the Mona Lisa reproduced on various consumer products, from clocks to pillow cases, and a reproduction of Leonardo’s Last Supper, but with the disciples sitting down to sushi bento boxes.
Born in São Paulo in 1932, Nelson Leirner grew up in the United States until the early 1950s, when he returned to Brazil. His first solo exhibition took place in 1961, and by 1963 he was included in the São Paulo Biennial. In 1967 he participated in the seminal New Brazilian Objectivity exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro. Among the works of that year was the Homage to Fontana series in which, ‘paintings’ stretched on a standard frame, but the monochrome made from fabric and zips. On invitation to the IV Brasilia Modern Art Salon, Leirner proposed showing a stuffed pig together with a statement protesting the refusal of its inclusion by the exhibition jury. Annoyingly however the work was accepted, leading the artist to rewrite the statement protesting the jury’s decision to show the work.
9 March 2020
