Athos Bulcão (Rio de Janeiro RJ 1918 - Brasília DF 2008)
Pintor, sculptor and architect.
In 1939, he left the medical school for dedicate yourself to painting. Presented by Murilo Mendes (1901 - 1975) to the couple Vieira da Silva (1908 - 1992) and Arpad Szenes (1897 - 1985), frequent their studio in the 1940. In 1945, he worked as an assistant to Candido Portinari (1903 - 1962) in the construction of the São Francisco de Assis Panel, at the Pampulha Church, in Belo Horizonte. Between 1948 and 1949, he lived in Paris with a scholarship granted by the French government. He holds drawing courses at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and Lithography in the studio of Jean Pons (1913). Back in Rio de Janeiro, he joins the Documentation Service of the Ministry of Education and Culture - MEC, and performs an illustration of catalogs and books. Between 1952 and 1958, he dedicated himself to photomontage. Since 1952, when he joined Companhia Urbanizadora da Nova Capital - Novacap, he has collaborated in projects by the architect Oscar Niemeyer (1907 - 2012). It carries out, among others, the project of tiles and stained glass panels for the Nossa Senhora de Fátima Church and for the Itamaraty Palace, in Brasília, and reliefs for the Latin America Memorial, in São Paulo. He teaches at the University of Brasília - UNB, between 1963 and 1965. Since the 1970s, he has worked with the architect João Filgueiras Lima, known as Lélé (1932), creating reliefs and architectural elements for the Sarah Hospital Network. Kubistchek. In 1993, the Athos Bulcão Foundation was created in Brasília.
Critical Comment
Athos Bulcão, in 1939, abandoned the course of medicine to dedicate himself to painting. He becomes friends with Burle Marx (1909 - 1994), Carlos Scliar (1920 - 2001) and Bianco (1918). Presented by Murilo Mendes (1901-1975) to the couple Vieira da Silva (1908 - 1992) and Arpad Szenes (1897 - 1985), frequent their studio in the decade of 1940. In 1945, he worked as an assistant to Candido Portinari (1903 - 1962), in the construction of the São Francisco de Assis panel, at the Pampulha Church, in Belo Horizonte.
Between 1948 and 1950, he lives in Paris with a scholarship granted by the French government. He holds drawing courses at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and Lithography in the studio of Jean Pons (ca.1913). Back in Rio de Janeiro, he joins the Documentation Service of the Ministry of Education and Culture - MEC, and performs an illustration of catalogs and books, among them, O Encontro Marcado and A Cidade Empto, by Fernando Sabino (1923). It draws covers for the magazines Brasil Arquitetura Contemporânea and Module de Arquitetura and for discs and scenarios of theatrical plays.
In 1952, it performs photomontages: cuts out photographic images of different origins and assembles new sets, photographed by him. With this procedure, you get surface and treatment unit. His photographs surprise with the unforeseen logic that arises from the associated images. Between 1954 and 1990, the artist performed series about Carnival in different techniques, such as painting and polychrome relief.
In the late 1950s, with preparations for the transfer of the capital to Brasília, at the invitation of the architect Oscar Niemeyer (1907), is requested from the MEC for the Urbanizadora da Nova Capital - Novacap. He becomes one of the main artists to develop a work integrated with architecture. He works in association with Oscar Niemeyer and later with the architect João Filgueiras Lima (1932). His work is linked to public spaces, including murals, panels and reliefs for the buildings of the National Congress, Chamber of Deputies, Claudio Santoro National Theater, Itamaraty Palace, Jaburu Palace, Juscelino Kubitschek Memorial, Chapel of the Alvorada Palace, Sarah Kubistchek Hospital and others. In 1971, he works with Oscar Niemeyer on projects in France, Italy and Algeria.
Bulcão enhances architecture and works with peculiarities offered by the projected space, its relations with the landscape and with nature, such as the incidence of solar luminosity. In its tiles, modulation and graphics are deftly created based on geometric shapes. His work, inscribed in some of the main Brazilian modern buildings, is notable for the balance found in the relationships between art and architecture.
Critics
"In recent years the painting by Athos Bulcão opens in multiple paths. It condenses experiences, travels through its own history and renews itself in inventions. (...) Synthesis is a refinement of color, elegance of treatment of space, lightness of matter and subtle humor. animals. They are ambivalent beings. They are like paintings on three-dimensional supports. or pictorial reliefs and volumes. (...) In the most recent canvases by Athos Bulcão, space is always complex. If in a work the surface is checkered, the spatial geometry will be subverted by the painting. (...) The planes are articulated by the mesh, or if non-existent, by their dance in space, the choreography of these dancing areas is not the rhythm of the straight and angled movement. Its time is complex: in some works, the rectangular areas surround in space, (...) the planes are articulated by the presence of color, which can be here and there. is in areas of different dimensions. in different tones. The color in Athos Bulcão has the intrinsic temporal dimension in its formation".
Paulo Herkenhoff
Athos Bulcão. Text by Paulo Herkenhoff. Brasília: Espaço Capital, 1987.
"(...) several photomontages were produced by the artist, between 1952 and 1953 that, being heirs of the fertile tradition started by George Grosz and John Heartfield, in Berlin From 1916, they only find a parallel, in the country, in a similar work done by Jorge de Lima.
(...)
The scene of these works by Athos Bulcão is not, therefore, classic or surrealist. It is first and foremost cinematic. As in the films, it results from the construction of images through photographic fragments that recreate, to some extent, the movement. Assimilates, based on procedures characteristic of photomontage very close to those of cinema, a technical conception and a temporality absolutely committed to the logic of the assembly lines indispensable to the industry. These are scenes built in a similar way to the tile panels that constitute one of the main aspects of their multiple artistic trajectory".
Fernando Cocchiarale
National Historical and Artistic Heritage Magazine. IPHAN. Photography. 27, 1998, p. 318.
Individual exhibitions
1944 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Individual drawings, at the Institute of Architects of Brazil - AIB/RJ
1946 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Individual, at IAB/RJ
1948 - Belo Horizonte MG - Individual drawings, at the Guignard Gallery
1967 - Brasília DF - Individual, in the Hotel Gallery National
1968 - Brasília DF - Individual, at the Encontro
1970 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Individual Art Gallery - Individual, at Galeria Décor
1975 - Brasília DF - Individual, in the multiple gallery
1978 - Brasília DF - Athos Bulcão: Overview of activities 1943/1978, at the Brazilian Society of English Culture
1979 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Individual, at Galeria GB
1979 - Nova York NY - United States - The Machine of the Houses, at the Cayman Gallery
1979 - New York NY - United States - Paintings and Works on Paper, at the National Art Center
1979 - London - England - Drawings, at the Canning House Gallery
1982 - New York NY - United States - Paintings, at the Cayman Gallery
1984 - São Carlos SP - Drawings: New York - São Paulo, Itaúgaleria
1984 - São Carlos SP - Drawings: New York - São Paulo, at the Federal University of São Carlos - UFSCar
1984 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Individual, at the Saramenha Gallery
1985 - São Paulo SP - Paintings, at the headquarters of the São Paulo Public Ministry Association
1986 - Itapetininga SP - Colors, Forms and Lines, at the Municipality of Itapetininga  
1987 - São Paulo SP - non-traditional geometry III, at the Almeida Barone Cultural Space
1987 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Individual, at the Saramenha Gallery
1987 - Brasília DF - Individual, at Espaço Capital Contemporary Art
1989 - São Paulo SP - Individual, at the Art Gallery Mônica Filgueiras de Almeida
1990 - Belo Horizonte MG - Individual, at Galeria Grupo Corpo
1992 - Brasília DF - Individual, at Itaúgaleria
1992 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Individual, at the Saramenha Gallery
1992 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Projects Art and Architecture, at IAB
1993 - Brasília DF - Retrospect, at the Itamaraty Palace
1994 - Brasília DF - Integration Art and Architecture, in the Mab
1995 - São Paulo SP - The trajectory of the line, at the Centro Universitáro Maria Antonia - USP
1997 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Photomontages, at the Paço Imperial
1998 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Athos Bulcão: a plural trajectory, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil - CCBB/RJ
2002 - Brasília DF - Construction and Poetry, at CCBB
2007 - São Paulo SP - Non-traditional Geometry IV - Vertical, at the Brazilian Museum of Sculpture Marisila Rathsam
Collective exhibitions
1940 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - National Salon of Fine Arts
1941 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - National Salon of Fine Arts - Exemption Award Jury and Silver Medal
1943 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Dissidentes, Brazilian Press Association, at IAB
1944 - London (United Kingdom) - Exhibition of Modern Brazilian Paintings, at the Royal Academy of Arts
1944 - Norwich (United Kingdom) - Exhibition of Modern Brazilian Paintings, at Norwich Castle and Museum
1944 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 50th National Salon of Fine Arts, at MNBA
1945 - Bath (United Kingdom) - Exhibition of Modern Brazilian Paintings, at the Victory Art Gallery
1945 - Bristol (United Kingdom) - Exhibition of Modern Brazilian Paintings, Bristol City Museum & Art Gallery
1945 - Edinburgh (United Kingdom) - Exhibition of Modern Brazilian Paintings, at the National Gallery
1945 - Glasgow (United Kingdom) - Exhibition of Modern Brazilian Paintings, at Kelingrove Art Gallery
1945 - Manchester (UK) - Exhibition of Modern Brazilian Paintings, Manchester Art Gallery
1946 - Santiago de Chile (Chile) - Painting Brasileña, at the Museo de Bellas Artes
1949 - Paris (France) - Collective, at the Maison de L'Amerique Latine
1950 - Resende RJ - Mostra Inaugural, at the Museum of Modern Art of Resende
1965 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Carnaval Carioca, at the IBEU Gallery
1967 - Brasília DF - National Hall of Brasília
1978 - Brasília DF - 14 artists from Brasília, At Galeria Oswaldo Goeldi
1981 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Collective Nuchy, at Nuchy Art Gallery
1984 - Tokyo (Japan) - Asian exhibition of modern art
1986 - Brasília DF - Rubem Valentim and Athos Bulcão, at the Art Gallery Performance
1986 - Brasília DF - All from Brasília, at the National Congress
1986 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Times of War: International Hotel, at the Art Gallery of the Banerj
1986 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Times of War: Pensão Mauá, at the Art Gallery of Banerj
1988 - São Paulo SP - Current Art of Brasília, at MAB/FAAP
1992 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 1st on the way to Niterói: João Sattamini Collection, at the Imperial Palace
1992 - São Paulo SP - White dominant, at the São Paulo Art Gallery
1993 - Brasília DF - Athos Bulcão, Rubem Valentim, Tomie Ohtake, at Espaço Cultural 508 Sul
1993 - Brasília DF - Triângulo, at Espaço Cultural 508 Sul
1993 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 23rd Panorama of current Brazilian art, at MAM/RJ
1993 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Paixão do Olhar, at MAM/RJ
1994 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Beyond Taprobana: the human figure in the visual arts of the countries of Portuguese Language, at the National Society of Fine Arts
1994 - São Paulo SP - Bienal Brasil 20th Century, at the Bienal Foundation
1995 - Lausanne (Switzerland) - Rio: Mysteries and Frontiers, at the Musée de PULLY
1995 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Beyond Taprobana: the human figure in the visual arts of Portuguese-speaking countries, at MAM/RJ
1996 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Rio: Mysteries and Frontiers, in the MAM/RJ
1998 - Brasília DF - Public art in Brasília, Athos Bulcão Foundation
1998 - Brasília DF - Cien recuerdos for Garcia Lorca, at the Cultural Space 508 Sul
1998 - Brasília DF - Panorama of the Visual Arts in the Federal District, at the Itamaraty Palace
1998 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 16th National Salon of Plastic Arts, at Funarte
1999 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Rio Exhibition engraving. Brazilian modern engraving: Collection National Museum of Fine Arts, in the MNBA
1999 - São Paulo SP - daily life/art. Consumption - Paratodos, at Itaú Cultural
2000 - Niterói RJ - Sattamini Collection: from materials to internal differences, at MAC/Niterói
2002 - Brasília DF - Contemporary Art Brasília 2002, at Arte Futura e Companhia
2002 - Brasília DF - Fragments to its magnet, in the contemporary cultural space Venâncio
2002 - Brasília DF - JK - An aesthetic adventure, in the cultural complex of Caixa
2002 - Porto Alegre RS - Appropriations/collections, at Santander Cultural
2002 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Artefoto, at CCBB
2002 - São Paulo SP - The form and the technical image in the art of Rio de Janeiro: 1950-1975, at Paço das Artes
2002 - São Paulo SP - Visions and Alumbramentos: Brazilian contemporary photography from the Joaquim Paiva collection, at OCA
2003 - Brasília DF - ARTFOTO, NO CCBB
2003 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Treasures of Caixa: Brazilian Modern Art in the Caixa Collection, in the Caixa Cultural Complex
2004 - São Paulo SP - Work in process, at MAC/USP
2005 - São Paulo SP - Chapel Art Show, at Maria Imaculada Chapel School
2005 - Santos SP - III Shows Darcy Hairstyle of Art, at the Coffee Museum
2005 - Hasselt Belgium - Scents: Locks: Kisses, at Hasselt Art Center
2005 - Jundiaí SP - small large works, in the multimedia room
2005 - Jundiaí SP - Small large works, at the Blue Life
2005 - Atibaia SP - Small large works, at the Pinacoteca Municipal de Atibaia
2005 - São Paulo SP - Notebook Vlado, 30 years old, at the Pinacoteca do Estado
2006 - São Paulo SP - Alma de Artist, at Sesc Pompéia
2006 - São Paulo SP - Olha a Bola!, at the Shopping Center Ligth
2006 - São Paulo SP - OFF Bienal 2, at the Brazilian Museum of Sculpture - MuBE
2006 - São Paulo SP - Chapel Art Show, at Escola Maria Imaculada Chapel School
2007 - São Paulo SP - Small Big Works, at SESC - Santana
Source: Itaú Cultural
