100 Years of Athos

In some ways, the carnivals inaugurate and enclose the extensive production period of imagery by Bulcão. In his paintings of the 40s until the beginning of 1960, there is a strange parade of almost schematic ways, configured in groups always lined up with fantasies, which refer more to the Venetian carnivals of old than the typically Carioca parties of the early twentieth century.

Athos gives names-narrative to some of his Photomontages, “Theeye of Moscow-Lively is the life aboard”, “the nightmare of Mrs.Vanderbilt”, “who knows, in New Orleans?” In others, the enigmaticnames: “the double”, “the prisoner”, “the abyss”. In all, they arenames of invitation for atrip, when we are caught inside of his photomovies,as Eisenstein teaches.

The idea came up at the last moment of the film 2001 - an Odyssey in Space, with the fetus. And they are fetuses, they are locked inside the uterus, and I imagine that it’s a question about the biological origin. (...) The intention is to make an object, play with anthropology, with the physical origin. I was in Paris, in 1971, at the Musée de l’homme, (...) I thought I’d do an exhibition of masks that look like made of foreign materials. The exhibition was called it’s all fake, a play on the question of the work of art. The artwork is an illusion. First, because it is no good for absolutely nothing, the fascinating side. Then, how can we tell when a work is true and when it is false?

When getting away (always with many possibilities of reappearance) of his schematic figures, he experiences a certain floating geometry in large color spaces, in his masks masks, from 1970 onwards, transferred the polychrome fixtures for the screen, and that will follow for the rest of his life. He starts the definition of quadrangular camps released in a fund that is always dark, populated by organic shapes, often evocative in a cameo. At first, arranged at right angles, they also float,creating overlays and transparencies.

The dialogue established in Traces of Athos is a conversation (inprogress) of the artists and curators with the “professor”. It bringsassumptions of the developments his inheritance, how it recirculatesand presents itself in the form of poetry under construction. The placeof Athos Bulcão is among the artists, punctuating his works andresponding with their forms. As it should be, an “infinite conversation”...

... There is a “principle of composition” to be freely handled by workers. The result, to some extent, escapes my control. Whenever white tiles are not employed, I leave to the workers the free provision of one element, a single “letter of the alphabet” to perform a deed. (...) When, instead of a “letter” there are two, the layout of the design will be freely handled, too (...) Regarding the reliefs, there is the factor of “light and shadow”, the Panel always follows a prior study in a scale model.