images | text

Leonilson
Born in 1957 in Fortaleza,Brazil / Died in1993 in São Paulo, Brazil

Adriano Pedrosa (AP): You have some works that are more poetic, and others that have more political content. Do they have a different target or intention?

Leonilson (L): All of my works want to suggest something. Although they are personal, it is my attitude, which hints at something. Those drawings from the series that I dedicate to certain men, Os Dedicados (The Dedicated Ones, 1991), somebody will see and read “o craque” (the excellent football player) or “o inatingível” (the unattainable one). Don’t you think that when somebody sees this set, it provokes a certain feeling, a reaction?

AP: OK, but my question is a different one. For example, in that work of yours dealing with many different minorities, it has a more pedagogical proposal, no?

L: A pedagogical proposal? It has a formative character.

AP: Because it is not purely poetic, there is a very different attitude there, when you list the all the minorities.

L: Yes, but when I write “o que v. quiser o que v. desejar eu estou aqui pronto para serví-lo” (whatever you wish, whatever you desire, I am here to serve you), don’t you think it is the same attitude?

AP: No, I think it is very different. Both works are poetic, but in the work with the minorities, you are making a political statement.

L: Yes, maybe one work is more political than the one that is purely poetic and speaks about somebody with whom I am in love.

AP: One is extremely personal…

L: But they complement each other, together they form a set of works, right?

AP: Of course, they all compose the set of works by Leonilson. But I am trying to identify the difference between these two types of works, because I believe there is a difference, so that we can try to understand this.

L: Yes, I think that while the other work speaks more about myself,  this more political work is an observation about society. The personal work might suggest something to other people, but it is something very private. The list of minorities is something that I see on the streets.

AP: And do you think of a specific target?

L: No, not a target, not like that. But of course when I am making the work I can understand that the target is wider, much more so than with the poetic works.

AP: A more specific and objective target?

L: Yes.

AP: It is a political work, then?

L: It is a work that can be said to be political. There is a political attitude, much more so than when I speak of my lovers, my intimate relations, my private things. But this political work is also made for myself, these are my own thoughts. Of course when I decide to put the list of minorities in a window at the gallery [Galeria Thomas Cohn, Rio de Janeiro, 1991], there is a political attitude there.

Based on an interview conducted in New York in May 1991