Antonio Obá

Featuring writing by curators Diana Campbell and Diane Lima, Antonio Obá collects paintings, objects and performances created by the artist who lives and works in Brasília. Obá’s art investigates the contradictions in the foundations of Brazil, pondering the idea of a national identity based on the tensions in the country’s racial, historical and political memory. Disturbing the archetypes and standards imposed by society, his works take Black bodies out of a space of shame and exploitation in order to, in his own words, “recover, reconfigure and narrate images that might rescue the dignity of a body who was historically denied, marginalized, commercialized, distorted and erased.”

Therefore, born out of the body, Antonio Obá’s art positions his practice in the context of ritual performance and of the criticism of racial violence, and in the center of the vast cultural-religious repertoire inhabiting Brazilian land. One of his paintings, Dança dos meninos (2021), inspired by a Milton Nascimento music video, carries the red of Minas Gerais land — marked by oppression in labor, religious and racial relations — as the figures of eight Black young men create a new meaning from the past, through a freedom dance. Brazil is even at the essence of creations such as Wade in the Water II (2020), where the artist references the immortalized figure of George Floyd, who, taking on the powers of Iemanjá — an orixá who, in Candomblé, rules the waters —, walks undeterred over the parting sea, towards the spectator.

In the words of American curator Diana Campbell, Antonio Obá’s art, “subverting and manipulating history as a form of transcending and transfiguring past pain”, attracts “our collective desire for a more equal, loving and fair future.” His artistic power comes from the construction of a “narrative for Black bodies that transcends suffering and returns to its noble origins, armed with all the lessons acquired throughout generations of sacrifice and fighting in solidarity movements.”

About the artist
Antonio Obá was born in 1983 in Ceilândia (DF, Brazil) and lives and works in Brasília. His exhibits include Path, Oude Kerk, Amsterdam; Antonio Obá: Fables, X Museum, Beijing (2022); Carolina Maria de Jesus, um Brasil para os brasileiros, IMS Paulista, São Paulo (2021); Enciclopédia Negra, Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, São Paulo (2021); TUYMANS – CAHN – OBA, Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, Paris (2021); Possédé·e·s, MO.CO, Montpellier (2020); 36º Panorama da Arte Brasileira, MAM, São Paulo (2019); Histórias Afro-Atlânticas, MASP / Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo (2018); Arte Democracia Utopia - quem não luta tá morto, MAR, Rio de Janeiro (2018); Pipa Prize 2017, Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro (2017); entre, Casa da américa Latina, Brasília (2016); My body is a cage, Galeria Luciana Caravello, Rio de Janeiro (2016); ONDEANDAAONDA, Museu Nacional da República, Brasília (2015); OCUPAÇÃO, Elefante Centro Cultural, Brasília (2014; Impermanências, Galeria de Arte Dulcina de Moraes, Brasília (2008); Sob o signo de um novo olhar, Centro Cultural do SESI, Brasília (2003).

About the authors
Diana Campbell is a curator with a degree from Princeton University. Since 2010, she has worked in South and Southeast Asia, particularly in India, Bangladesh and the Philippines. Since 2013, she has acted as the artistic director of Samdani Art Foundation, in Daca, Bangladesh, and as curator-in-chief of the Dhaka Art Summit. Campbell was the artistic director of the Bellas Artes Projects, in the Philippines, a not-for-profit program promoting residences and exhibitions in Manila and Bataan, and the curator of the London Frieze Projects in its 2018 and 2019 editions. She's also chairwoman of the board of the Mumbai Art Room. Diana Campbell’s writing has been published by Mousse, Frieze e Art in America, MoMA, and other publications.

Diane Lima is part of the curatorial team for the 35th Bienal de São Paulo (2023), and for the new long-term exhibition of the Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo (MAC-USP) archive. She is the curator of Vuadora, a Paulo Nazareth retrospective in the Pivô gallery in São Paulo, of Path, Antonio Obá’s exhibition at Oude Kerk, in Amsterdam, and of the 3rd edition of Frestas – Trienal de Artes, at SESC-SP (São Paulo), under the title O Rio é uma Serpente. Her seminars, writing and interviews have had great repercussion in institutions such as MoMA, New York University, Matadero Madrid, Hochschule der Künste Bern (Switzerland), Hoger Instituut voor Schone Kunsten (Belgium), Patrícia Phelps de Cisneros Research Institute, and Netflix.

Specifications
Title Antonio Obá
Authors Diana Campbell and Diane Lima
Translator Adriana Francisco
Book design Elif Tanman
Language Portuguese / English
Page count 220
ISBN 978-65-5691-074-1
Size 22 x 25 cm
Format Softcover
Year 2022