Lenora de Barros, chameleon artist

Luiza Pollo — April 05, 2023

Lenora de Barros's “ex-current self-portrait” could include: visual artist, poet, curator, columnist, photography editor, art director, performer, linguist. Beyond words and the theoretical universe of concrete poetry, her works expose provocative records through photography, video art and performance. Lenora is multiple. READ MORE

Lenora de Barros's “ex-current self-portrait” could include: visual artist, poet, curator, columnist, photography editor, art director, performer, linguist. Having graduated in linguistics at the end of the 1970s at the Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences at USP and marked by the concretism inherited from her artist father Geraldo de Barros (1923 — 1998) and by her interest in the concrete poetry of Augusto de Campos, Haroldo de Campos and Décio Pignatari; Lenora is multiple. Beyond words and the theoretical universe of concrete poetry, her works expose provocative records through photography, video art and performance. Her body’s active and inextricable presence in her works bring to light, additionally, discussions on gender.

Auto Ex-Retrato (Self Ex-Portrait), 1993 — 2019

Her works carry a provocative, raw and sensual humor. Words, body and image are dissected and simultaneously explored in a free manner, revealing the influence of pop and conceptual art. In the words of Augusto de Campos: “liberation of the words to go beyond the pages”. The three-dimensionality of words is the subject, how it occupies an environment in a visual, corporeal and sonorous way. Lenora plays with all the simultaneous possibilities. Her saliva is revealed and felt, her tongue literally touches each letter and is almost swallowed by the “poem making machine”. Her intent is critical and provocative. And those who observe the work are provoked as well.

Poema (Poem), 1979

In order to deconstruct a poem, it takes a scream, a vertebral tongue sticking out, a game of ping pong. It takes a dive of self-searching and the desire to exit oneself. This deconstruction and reconstruction is eternal. On the days before the artist turns 70 years old, it is possible to see her work in two exhibitions in São Paulo. A retrospective of her career, at the Pinacoteca, and at the “Não Vejo a Hora” (I Can’t Wait) exhibition, at the new headquarters of the Gomide & Co gallery.