AmadorPerez50Years
Rafael Cardoso - 2024 (art historian and writer)
A career spanning five decades. It is a rare privilege for an artist to be able to celebrate this significant milestone while still fully engaged in their work. Some artists achieve early success, followed by a decline. In contrast, there are others who commence relatively late. The most common trajectory is one in which an artist experiences a period of intense creativity, during which they produce the works that establish their reputation, and then devotes the remainder of their career to refining and perfecting these creations. Amador Perez stands as an exception to this general rule. He made an admirable debut in 1974 and continues to refine and enhance his craft. It is a rare phenomenon, an imaginative universe that is in a state of continuous expansion.
When I first discovered Amador's oeuvre in 1990, he was already regarded as a master draughtsman. The technical sophistication of his works would have already overwhelmed any student of art history's sensibilities. However, the virtuosity for which he was acclaimed concealed a conceptual density that was not fully understood at the time. Over the following years, Amador gradually revealed that drawing was but one of many creative tools at his disposal. He dipped his toes in printmaking, forded mighty streams in collage, dived headfirst into digital manipulation and broke water to storm in photography. His strength is the image itself, in all its oceanic malleability.
While the tour de force of virtuosity and variations is notable, it is ultimately underpinned by a fixed idea. A pervasive theme in Amador's work is his exploration of the power of images to evoke memories. It is not the issue of recording appearances, which has been discussed at length in the context of mimesis and its opposite. Rather, it is the interplay between images and other images that is of interest.
Art historians refer to this as iconography, while Aby Warburg theorized it as Bildwanderungen . Images facilitate communication with both the living and the deceased. Amador concentrated on the latter, his own artistic pantheon, without resorting to hagiography. Instead, he explores how meanings can be transformed over time. His primary interest is in image reproduction, which he views as the raw material for the transmutation of meanings.
In today's digital age, where memes, stories , and deepfakesare prevalent, image manipulation has arguably reached its zenith. For better or (usually) for worse, the
power of image-driven communications shapes the world in which we live. In this context, artists and scholars alike have recognized the importance of unpacking the nuances of image-based communication and disseminating insights into its underlying mechanics. Amador Perez has devoted fifty years to addressing this challenge in his own way. The act of deconstructing, re-signifying, and preserving images that might otherwise be erased is the essence of a body of work that is more relevant today than ever. It is likely that Amador will come to be regarded as one of a select group of individuals who were ahead of their time.
Notesfromajourney
Amador Perez - 2024
From an early age, I have been drawn to the visual arts. During my teenage years, I developed a keen interest in collectible periodicals, which were readily available at newsstands. I was particularly intrigued by the process of reproducing imagery and would often engage in experimental techniques to emulate these reproductions. In the 1970s, my interest was focused on photographic images sourced from newspapers and magazines. I meticulously selected and integrated these images as references in my graphite drawings, an artistic pursuit in which I remain profoundly engaged. During this period, I also began an investigation into the potential of Xerox technology, despite the limited resources available to me at the time.
In 1976, while delving deeper into xerographic research, I was inspired to create WaslawNijinsky,my UFRJ Bachelor of Fine Arts graduation project. This project paid homage to the mythical Russian dancer and choreographer. I proceeded to create collages with cut-outs from photocopies of selected Nijinsky imagery, which I then manipulated and reconstructed as graphite drawings that reimagined the original compositions. In the same year, I documented these drawings through photography and engaged with their projected images in a theatrical interpretation of my WaslawNijinskyproject. This artistic performance represented the pinnacle of a series of "lecture-shows" for a multidimensional workshop, conceptualized by set designer Helio Eichbauer, professor at Parque Lage School of Visual Arts, where my project in partnership with Angela Loureiro de Souza was featured. In 1977, I held my inaugural solo exhibition, entitled WaslawNijinsky , at the Museum of Modern
Art of Rio de Janeiro. The exhibition featured two significant components: firstly, the original graphic suite was displayed in the Experimental Area, and secondly, a revised iteration of the performance that had been presented the previous year at EAV. In 1982, as an expression of my profound admiration for his artistry, I created a series of ten graphite drawings titled Nijinski:Imagens(Nijinsky: Images). These drawings were a visual reinterpretation of a select set of photographs of the renowned dancer. The series was published in 1983, with a written introduction by Júlio Castañon Guimarães. It was subsequently republished in 1985. In 1988, the drawings were reissued in poster format by Rio de Janeiro-based design studio Alquimia Criação Visual, leading to a significant increase in their public visibility.
My in-depth analysis of artistic techniques led me to pursue a new series of drawings in the 1980s and 1990s. I applied a highly precise approach to my work, striving to capture the elusive and imaginative elements that inspired me. I was motivated by the potential of art prints to evoke a sense of wonder. My work examining reproductions of works of art finds an especially meaningful expression in the Gioventùsuite, comprising 63 graphite and colored pencil drawings created between 1995 and 1998. These drawings take their inspiration directly from a reproduction of Gioventù,a painting from the National Museum of Fine Arts collection - my very first visit to the museum proved to be a particularly memorable experience, as I was immediately drawn to this luminous portrayal of a girl depicted by Eliseu Visconti. In 1999, the Brazilian publishing house Editora Fraiha, from Rio de Janeiro, released an anthology of 70 drawings I produced between 1973 and 1998. This collection, titled ColeçãodoArtista(Artist's Collection), also included written contributions from Frederico Morais and Fernando Cocchiarale. The very last pages featured the nascent stages of my Gioventùseries, which I had begun creating in 1998.
In the early 2000s, I began to explore the possibilities of combining printmaking techniques, photographic processes, and digital resources at the intersection of graphic reproduction methods. I was particularly interested in how these diverse media could be combined in ways that would provoke thought and reflection. I am grateful to Agustinho Coradello, a highly skilled and perceptive printer, and to Lula Perez, my brother and a powerful source of encouragement, for their invaluable contributions to this process. I pursued a dual trajectory of experimentation in the digital domain and ongoing refinement of my graphite oeuvre. In 2003, I presented a suite of drawings named Espectros(Specters) at the Lana Botelho Artes Visuais gallery in Rio. This series was followed by Speculatio , a series of drawings based on a meticulous curation of self-portraits by artists across historical eras, which I exhibited at the Paço Imperial in 2005.
Following my extensive experimentation with drawing techniques in the two preceding series, I elected to forego my absolute reliance on drawing skills with the advent of new media. Instead, I engaged in a comprehensive exploration of the
interplay between manual and digital techniques, as evidenced in the Gabinetede Leitura(Reading Cabinet) collection, which was exhibited in 2009 at Galeria 90 Arte Contemporânea in Rio. This synthesis represents a distillation of the array of resources that I have acquired and refined throughout my career. It draws connections between artwork reproductions and the elements that are inherent to their graphic reproduction environments, such as books and postcards.
Between 2010 and 2014, I continued my research on authors and works spanning different eras. This process involved incorporating images derived from my own drawings. I developed a series based on a review of works from the late 1970s and early 1980s. The series QuantosQuadros(Various Frames), started in 2006 and finished in 2013, comprises twenty variations on a single drawing from 1980. In this new series, the imagery from the drawings is employed as a point of reference for the creation of a distinctive world and narrative. Timeless in their essence, these images evoke a sense of silence, emptiness, and solitude. They have been crafted through digital manipulation and mineral pigment jet printing on paper, as seen in the Um,Dois,series (One, Two,, 2010-11), and on canvas in the works comprising the Memorabiliasuite (2012-14). Subsequently, the two series were exhibited in Rio de Janeiro, first at the Jaime Portas Vilaseca Gallery in 2011 and then at the Centro Cultural Correios in 2014. At the latter venue, I also presented my two projects on Nijinsky (1976 and 1982), which have since been redesigned as artist's books in collaboration with Cristina Viana (Palmarium Encadernações de Arte). The books were edited by Christina Penna (Hólos Arte).
In 2015, I embarked upon a photographic project using my mobile phone as a new working tool. This project allowed me to further my research into the material and immaterial, singular and multiple aspects of both original works of art and their reproductions. I was eager to explore the potential of broadening the scope of inquiry, and in 2019, I held an exhibition, titled DVWCFotoseVariações(DVWC Photos and Variations) at Paço Imperial in Rio de Janeiro. This project started out in 2015, inspired by the works of Dürer, Vermeer, Watteau, and Courbet. It began with an exploration of the interaction between my hands and physical books, as well as printed images. This interaction led to an examination of the representations of scenes and characters, and how they relate to the tangible and graphic elements of the books themselves. As I have always employed graphite as a medium, leveraging the inherent potential of this elementary technique, here I similarly use a mobile phone camera and a basic image editor to capture images. Ultimately, I hope to extract meaning and discern significance from these images and compositions. This process has proven to be both fascinating and rewarding, and I have extended it to the classroom, inviting my students to engage with it as well.
In DVWC , my hands engage in a dialogue with the physical books and their printed visual content. This is followed by the next body of work, Piranesiana:Fundição (2015-22). These works are informed by my fascination with Piranesi's oeuvre,
particularly his fireplace projects and the unique visual representations of fire that he depicts in 37 surprising metal engraving variations. In my series, 37 groups of five images are used to convey distinct, specific visions. These images are presented in gradients of black, red, and yellow, which are also in the "Piranesi variations." In the subsequent series, Goyesca:Taurografia(2018-23), an assemblage of objects is incorporated into the prints. These objects are related to the subject of bullfighting and include instruments and materials employed in the engraving process itself. The resulting diptychs consist of 80 images grouped into five themes, with 16 photos each. These images are drawn from the scenes and characters depicted in Tauromaquia , Goya's iconic work.
I have consistently sought to transcend the limitations of a single technique, embracing a diverse range of media as a means of articulating the coherence of my ideas.
(English
version, Aline Lorena Tolosa)