O CONCEITO ENTRE O VERBO E A VISUALIDADE: ALMANDRADE

After the Concrete Poetry movement, 60 years ago and the Poem/Process 50 years ago, which led to the total radicalisation of visualisation: the word was dispensed with from the poem, leaving only the signs or words/images that develop in the white space of the paper. The generation of poet-artists that emerged in the 1970s took the resources of conceptual art, postal art and neoconcretist experiments to their ultimate consequences. The visual artist and poet from Bahia, with a background in architecture, Almandrade, stands out from this generation. The great visual richness allied to the semantics of the proposal make Almandrade one of the most creative workers of the language. A builder/inventor. "We could almost say that Almandrade invented a new form of 'Brazilian Haiku', reduced to its simplest expression." (Marc Pottier). Almandrade's work walks between poetry, the concept and the visual, between form and word, between spatial rigour and poetry. An exponent of conceptual art from Bahia and, today, one of the great names in Brazilian visual arts, with a respected production in the main art circuits of the country and recognised internationally. As of April 4th, part of this production, in small formats, can be seen at Baró Galeria, Rua da Consolação Jardins, on show until April 30th. Complementing the exhibition is the launch of an album of prints, edition of 50 copies 16 x 22 cm. There are 10 visual poems produced in the 1970s and published in 2016 by Gravuras no Brasil.

 

With around 45 years of artistic activity, Almandrade needs no introduction. His work, which began amid the creative vigour that marked the artistic movement in the 1970s, has a very particular trait: it represents the very universality of art, alternating between Constructivist aesthetics, Conceptual Art and the Visual Poem. The coherence and rigour in dealing with different media make Almandrade, a thinker who uses these media to produce reflections, an authentic representative of a generation that emerged in the 1970s.

 

The concept between the verb and the visual - Almandrade @ Baró Galeria - Jardins