Artur Barrio

“ARTUR BARRIO,” ARTUR ALIPIO BARRIO DE SOUSA LOPES (Portugal, 1945).
Untitled, 1971.
Ink on paper.
The frame has some minor imperfections.
Signed and dated in the upper left corner.
Measurements: 17 x 24 cm; 27 x 34 cm (frame).
Artur Barrio is a prominent Portuguese-Brazilian artist, considered a key figure in conceptual and action art in Latin America. Born in Porto in 1945, he moved to Rio de Janeiro in 1955, where he began his artistic career and later studied at the National School of Fine Arts.
Beginning in the late 1960s, he developed a radical artistic language based on the use of everyday, organic, perishable, and precarious materials, challenging traditional artistic conventions and the institutional space itself. In 1969, he began his famous “Situations”—ephemeral interventions carried out in public and urban spaces—in which he explored the relationship between matter, the body, society, and the environment.
His body of work includes installations, performances, sculptures, drawings, photographs, and artist’s books, with his “Cadernoslivros”—begun in 1966—standing out in particular. His work has been presented at major international institutions and events, including the São Paulo Biennial, Documenta in Kassel, the Venice Biennale, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, and MoMA in New York. In 2011, he received the Velázquez Prize for Visual Arts in recognition of his career and the uniqueness of his artistic language.