Artur Lescher (São Paulo SP 1962)
Artur Lescher is a sculptor born in São Paulo, Brazil, in 1962. In 1983, he began studying philosophy at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo (PUC/SP), but did not complete the course. Between 1982 and 1986, he took independent courses in the studios of Carlos Fajardo (1941), Flávia Ribeiro (1954) and Boi (1944). He taught sculpture at the Faculdade Santa Marcelina in São Paulo from 1991 to 1999.
In his sculptural work, Artur Lescher pursues research into matter, form and thought, using diverse materials such as metal, stone, wood, brass, copper, water, oil and salt. His works evoke design, suggest narratives and recall familiar objects stripped of their function, as in O x O – A Roda [O x O – The Wheel], shown in 2001 at the Memorial da América Latina in São Paulo. Titles such as Rio Máquina [River Machine], Metamérico [Metameric] and Inabsência [Inabsence] reveal his interest in symbolic meanings and in prompting new interpretations from the viewer.
In his installations, Artur Lescher engages directly with architectural space, as in Aeroestação [Air Station] (19th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, 1987), Semovente [Self-Moving] (Paço das Artes, 1989) and Indoor Landscape – Paisagem para Espaço Protegido da Natureza [Landscape for a Space Protected from Nature] (25th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, 2002). That same year, Cosac & Naify published the book Artur Lescher, with texts by Aracy Amaral, Rafael Vogt and Arthur Nestrovski.
In recent years, he has held major solo exhibitions such as Artur Lescher at the Instituto Artium (2023) in São Paulo; Observatório [Observatory] at Farol Santander (2022) in Porto Alegre; Suspensão [Suspension] at Estação Pinacoteca (2019) in São Paulo; and Asterismos [Asterisms] at the Almine Rech Gallery (2019) in Paris. His works are held in notable collections such as the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA), the Museum of Fine Arts Houston (MFAH) and the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, consolidating his standing in Brazilian and international contemporary art.
Critical Commentary
In the view of the art historian Aracy Amaral, Artur Lescher's artistic trajectory relates to a poetics of space, coming close to design and architecture. In addition, the materials he works with help determine the direction of his works.
In his proposal for the 19th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, in 1987, he installed two parallel polygons - or aerolites - separated by the building's window frames and glass, revealing the supposedly neutral space of the construction. As the art historian Tadeu Chiarelli notes, Lescher emphasizes the poetic dimension of the interior of the Bienal building, transforming it, through the aluminum polygon, into a place of dreamlike reverberations that seems reflected outside, where the plastic polygon stands, seen through the transparent panes, almost turned into mirrors.
One notes the artist's concern with allowing the viewer an affective perception of the space in which objects of great structural lightness are installed, as in Semovente, an installation created for the Paço das Artes in São Paulo (1989). In his sculptural output, he creates objects in stone, wood or metal of great strangeness, either because they are removed from their functional character or because, with a touch of irony, they seem to defy balance and gravity.
Critiques
"At first there were objects related to engineering: airplanes, aerolites, houses and factory roofs. A poetics of constructive and functional impulses. To this was added a curious strategy of combining rational objects - open-work structures, regular solids - with corrosive, unstable materials, characterized by their susceptibility - mercury, heated water, salts. Now, at Galeria Nara Roesler, Artur Lescher presents eight commentaries, made from forms in wood, metal and stone, on the law of gravity, traction and compression".
Agnaldo Farias
LESCHER, Artur. Artur Lescher. Texto Agnaldo Farias; fotografia Romulo Fialdini. São Paulo: Galeria Nara Roesler, 1998. p. [10].
"Artur Lescher makes sculptural drawings. He is an artist of projects that discuss the mechanisms of all objects. His works border on engineering. But, unexpectedly and with a certain dose of irony, they subvert the functional expectations their forms seemed to promise. This pendulum of his, for example. Made of wood, with a perfectly round body, it holds the memory of a drawing compass. But it does not write. Or rather, it makes invisible writings, indecipherable to the naked eye".
Katia Canton
O LÁPIS e o papel: sobre a liberdade, o despojamento e o sentido. Curadoria Katia Canton; texto Katia Canton; tradução Brian Honeyball. São Paulo: Galeria Nara Roesler, 2000. p. [7].
"Lescher has the charm of the seemingly awkward, a perpetual-adolescent type, shy, with a friendly smile, half hiding, but deep down knowing full well what he wants and what he likes and how to do what he sets out to do. As an artist, he shows as a constant a poetics of space and of beauty of form that brings him close to the concerns of design, architecture and research into the materials with which he develops his projects. These features identify him as a typically São Paulo artist for these very reasons. He belongs to the lineage of those who preceded him fifty years ago, when the young concretists of São Paulo were captivated by the contributions of the Swiss delegation at the 1st Bienal, which favored industrial supports, wood composite, aluminum or polished steel, as well as the mechanical application of paint, rejecting handcraft. (...)
Serial work has always been pursued by Artur Lescher: an idea in his head and its gradual development through pieces that unfold into others, starting from the first idea. (...) But ever since his houses (and balloons), the dialogue of his forms has been with the space that contains his pieces. The dialogue with space and seriality signal, at the same time, his predilection for modular exercises".
Aracy Amaral
AMARAL, Aracy. A Tática da Elegância: entre o espacial e o serial. In: LESCHER, Artur. Artur Lescher. Texto Aracy Amaral, Rafael Vogt, Arthur Nestrovski; fotografia Romulo Fialdini, Fausto Chermont, Vitor Facciolla, Domingues, Mark James Timoner. São Paulo: Cosac & Naify, 2002.
Collections
Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango - Bogotá (Colômbia)
Centro Cultural São Paulo - São Paulo SP
Instituto Itaú Cultural - São Paulo SP
Instituto Nacional de Belas Artes - Rio de Janeiro RJ
Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo - MAC/USP
Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo - MAM/SP
Museu Nacional de Belas Artes - MNBA - Rio de Janeiro RJ
Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo
Solo Exhibitions
1989 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at MAM/SP
1989 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Macunaíma Project, at Funarte
1989 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at MAC/USP
1990 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Paço Imperial
1991 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Millan
1993 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Millan
1998 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Nara Roesler
1998 - São Paulo SP - Exhibitions Program 98, at CCSP
2002 - São Paulo SP - Elípticas [Ellipticals], at Galeria Nara Roesler
Group Exhibitions
1984 - Curitiba PR - 6th Curitiba City Printmaking Show
1984 - São Paulo SP - Art in the Street 2, organizado pelo MAC/USP
1985 - São Paulo SP - 3rd São Paulo Contemporary Art Salon, at Fundação Bienal
1985 - São Paulo SP - E o Desenho? [And Drawing?], at Galeria Humberto
1986 - São Paulo SP - Projeto Espacial Aerólito [Aerolite Space Project], with Elisa Stecca, at Subdistrito Comercial de Arte
1987 - São Paulo SP - 19th São Paulo International Biennial, at Fundação Bienal
1989 - Brasília DF - New Values of Latin American Art/Brazil, at MAB/DF
1989 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 11th National Visual Arts Salon, at Funarte - acquisition prize
1989 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Macunaíma Project, at Funarte
1989 - São Paulo SP - Contemporary Art São Paulo, Recent Perspectives, at CCSP
1990 - Madrid (Spain) - Brazilian Artists, at Casa do Brasil
1990 - Paris (France) - Brazilian Artists, at Centro de Cultura Latino-americano
1990 - São Paulo SP - Apropriações [Appropriations], at Paço das Artes
1991 - Fortaleza CE - 2nd International Exhibition of Ephemeral Sculpture
1991 - São Paulo SP - 22nd Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1991 - São Paulo SP - Visual Arts Exhibition Program, at CCSP
1992 - São Paulo SP - Galeria Millan: Inaugural Show, at Galeria Millan
1992 - São Paulo SP - Annual Visual Arts Exhibition Program, at Fundação Bienal
1993 - São Paulo SP - Encounters and Tendencies, at MAC/USP
1994 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Artists from São Paulo, at Paço Imperial
1994 - São Paulo SP - 2nd Arte Cidade [Art City]: The City and Its Flows, at Vale do Anhangabaú
1994 - São Paulo SP - Bienal Brasil Século XX, at Fundação Bienal
1994 - São Paulo SP - Group Sculpture Show, at Espaço Namour
1995 - Curitiba PR - Engraved Object, at Museu da Gravura
1995 - São Paulo SP - 1st United Artists, at Casa das Rosas
1995 - São Paulo SP - Between Drawing and Sculpture, at MAM/SP
1996 - São Paulo SP - Metal e suas Ligações [Metal and Its Alloys], at Sesc Pompeia
1996 - São Paulo SP - At the Limits of Photography, at Sesc Pompeia
1997 - São Paulo SP - Coro para 14 Vozes [Choir for 14 Voices], at Galeria Nara Roesler
1997 - São Paulo SP - Bienal Projects, at Espaço de Arte
1998 - Belo Horizonte MG - Terra e Mar à Vista [Land and Sea in Sight], at Itaú Cultural
1998 - Brasília DF - Terra e Mar à Vista [Land and Sea in Sight], at Galeria Itaú Cultural
1998 - São Paulo SP - City Canibal, at Paço das Artes
1998 - São Paulo SP - Annual Visual Arts Exhibition Program, at CCSP
1998 - São Paulo SP - Terra e Mar à Vista [Land and Sea in Sight], at Itaú Cultural
1998 - São Paulo SP - Journeys, at Itaú Cultural
1999 - Belém PA - 3rd Eletromidia de Arte: Virtual Exhibition, at Rua Boaventura da Silva x Av. Doca de Souza Franco
1999 - Belo Horizonte MG - 3rd Eletromidia de Arte: Virtual Exhibition, at Av. Contorno x Av. Amazonas
1999 - Bogotá (Colombia) - De Brasil: Alquimias y Procesos [From Brazil: Alchemies and Processes], at Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango
1999 - Campinas SP - 3rd Eletromidia de Arte: Virtual Exhibition
1999 - Campo Grande MS - 3rd Eletromidia de Arte: Virtual Exhibition, at Av. Afonso Pena x R. Treze de Maio
1999 - Cuiabá MT - 3rd Eletromidia de Arte: Virtual Exhibition, at Av. Fernando Correia da Costa
1999 - Jundiaí SP - 3rd Eletromidia de Arte: Virtual Exhibition, at Av. Nove de Julho, 1400
1999 - Manaus AM - 3rd Eletromidia de Arte: Virtual Exhibition, at Av. Paraíba x Rua Efigênio Sales
1999 - Osasco SP - 3rd Eletromidia de Arte: Virtual Exhibition, at Av. dos Autonomistas
1999 - Porto Alegre RS - 3rd Eletromidia de Arte: Virtual Exhibition, at Av. Goethe x Rua Mostardeiro e Rua Vinte e Quatro de Outubro x Rua Bordini
1999 - Recife PE - 3rd Eletromidia de Arte: Virtual Exhibition
1999 - Ribeirão Preto SP - 3rd Eletromidia de Arte: Virtual Exhibition, at Av. Presidente Vargas
1999 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 3rd Eletromidia de Arte: Virtual Exhibition, at Av. Venceslau Brás x R. General Severiano; Praça da Bandeira - Radial Oeste, near Praça da Bandeira; Humaitá - Largo do Humaitá
1999 - Salvador BA - 3rd Eletromidia de Arte: Virtual Exhibition, at Av. Tancredo Neves
1999 - Santo André SP - 3rd Eletromidia de Arte: Virtual Exhibition, at R. Dom Pedro II x R. Catequese
1999 - Santos SP - 3rd Eletromidia de Arte: Virtual Exhibition
1999 - São Paulo SP - 3rd Eletromidia de Arte: Virtual Exhibition, at Av. Cidade Jardim x Av. Brig. Faria Lima; Av. Brig. Faria Lima x Av. Rebouças; Av. Eng. Luís Carlos Berrini x Av. Águas Espraiadas; Rua Vergueiro x Av. Paulista; Av. Juscelino Kubitschek x Av. Brig. Faria Lima; Av. Paulista x Al. Campinas
1999 - São Vicente SP - 3rd Eletromidia de Arte: Virtual Exhibition, at Av. Presidente Wilson x Av. Antônio Emmerich
2000 - Berlin (Germany) - Man/Nature/Technology, at Instituto Cultural Brasileiro na Alemanha
2000 - Lisbon (Portugal) - 20th Century: Art of Brazil, at Centro de Arte Moderna José de Azeredo Perdigão
2000 - Penápolis SP - Man/Nature/Technology, at Galeria Itaú Cultural
2000 - Quito (Ecuador) - Dialogue: Contemporary Art Brazil/Ecuador, at Centro Cultural de la Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador
2000 - São Paulo SP - Dialogue: Contemporary Art Brazil/Ecuador, at Memorial da América Latina. Galeria Marta Traba
2000 - São Paulo SP - Between Art and Design: MAM Collection, at MAM/SP
2000 - São Paulo SP - Brazilian Sculpture: From the Pinacoteca to the Jardim da Luz, at Pinacoteca do Estado
2000 - São Paulo SP - O Lápis e o Papel [Pencil and Paper], at Galeria Nara Roesler
2001 - Brasília DF - Man/Nature/Technology, at Galeria Itaú Cultural
2001 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - The Spirit of Our Time, at MAM/RJ
2001 - São Paulo SP - 4th Bienal Barro de América, at Memorial da América Latina
2001 - São Paulo SP - The Spirit of Our Time, at MAM/SP
2001 - São Paulo SP - Rede de Tensão [Tension Network], at Paço das Artes
2002 - São Paulo SP - 20 Artists / 20 Years, at CCSP
2002 - São Paulo SP - 25th São Paulo International Biennial, at Fundação Bienal
2002 - São Paulo SP - Cidadeprojeto / cidadeexperiência, at MAM/SP
2002 - São Paulo SP - Inflatables, at Sesc Belenzinho
2002 - São Paulo SP - Open Opera: Celebration, at Casa das Rosas
2002 - São Paulo SP - Six Artists at the 25th Bienal de São Paulo, at Galeria Nara Roesler
2003 - Brasília DF - Artur Lescher and Claudia Jaguaribe, at Espaço Cultural Contemporâneo Venâncio
2003 - Madrid (Spain) - ARCO/2003, at Parque Ferial Juan Carlos I
2003 - São Paulo SP - ARCO 2003, at Galeria Nara Roesler
2003 - São Paulo SP - Constructivism and Form as Clothing, at MAM/SP
2003 - São Paulo SP - My Friends, at MAM/SP
2004 - Madrid (Spain) - ARCO/2004, at Parque Ferial Juan Carlos I
2004 - São Paulo SP - Contemporary Art in the Municipal Collection, at CCSP
2004 - São Paulo SP - Pintura Reencarnada [Reincarnated Painting], at Paço das Artes
Source: Itaú Cultural
