“Every thing in its place”

Nelson Leirner is a multimedia artist, well-known for his critical stance and his interventions in pre-existing objects. He studied textile engineering at the Lowell Technological Institute in Massachusetts (United States), took painting classes with Juan Ponc and spent two years at Samson Flexor's Abstração Studio. Together with Wesley Duke Lee, Geraldo de Barros, José Resende, Carlos Fajardo and Frederico Nasser, he taught and created the Rex group in 1966, a collective that criticized the excessive institutionalization of art. In 1961, he had his first solo exhibition, but before that he had already exhibited in art salons. He participated in important exhibitions such as the São Paulo Biennial in 1963, 1965, 1967, 2002, 2006, 2010, the New Brazilian Objectivity (Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro), Playground (Museum of Art of São Paulo – MASP), Revolta do Animal (considered the best proposal by the São Paulo Association of Art Critics – APCA, in 1974), Uma linha dura, não dura (Luisa Strina Gallery), Modernity: Brazilian art of the 20th century (Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris), Nelson, before N. Leirner (Centro Universitário Maria Antônia), Dreamlands (Centro Georges Pompidou), among others. In 1999, he represented Brazil at the 48th Venice Biennale and had a special room at the 25th São Paulo Biennale.

In 1975, Leirner also became a professor at Armando Álvares Penteado College – Faap, where he taught until 1996, when he moved to Rio de Janeiro. There, he taught at the Parque Lage School of Visual Arts - EAV/Parque Lage.

Since the beginning of his career, the exploration of criticism of the contemporary art system has been a constant in his works, both individually and with the Rex group, leading him to be considered a controversial artist. We can see this aspect in works such as "The Pig" (1967), also known as "The Happening of Criticism", a work accepted into the IV Salon of Modern Art in Brasília but whose entry into it was questioned by the artist, and "The Price of Art" (2012), in which Leirner presents a reproduction of a dollar bill and a pair of scissors about to cut it.

Another notable aspect of his work is the idea of ​​appropriation, which is now considered a hallmark of his artistic style. This can be seen in the works New York, New York (2009), in which the artist creates a composition with miniature cars in black, yellow, red and blue based on works by Mondrian, as well as in Me and Manet (2011), in which images of insects are pasted onto a photographic reproduction of the famous painting “Le déjeneur sur l'herbe”.

As Rafael Vogt Maia Rosa points out: “Nelson Leirner is one of those artists whose biography is intertwined with personal legends. As we know, this ends up, in many cases, constituting yet another poetic strategy, an inescapable context that overlaps the creation of diverse works, but which appear to be cohesive. His long-term work as a teacher, his happenings and testimonies, all seem to contribute to an extraordinary path of achievements that remain in the orbit of a questioning not only of the formal nature of artistic practice, but of an ongoing controversy.”1

1. Source: http://www.mariantonia.prceu.usp.br/celeuma/?q=revista/1/entrevistas/entrevista-com-nelson-leirner#sthash.j3aoHvzx.dpuf