the constant inequality of leonor’s days*

In connection with the forty-some sculptures exhibited at the Crac (some of which make reference to Sadie Speight), Leonor Antunes presents a cork floor inlaid with brass and linoleum patterns. The enlarged pattern reproduces that of a rug by British designer Marian Pepler, who was close associate of Sadie Speight: through this gesture of citation and displacement, Leonor Antunes also restores Pepler to a central place.

In this project, presented in Lisbon and then in Sète, Leonor Antunes once again implements a method that interweaves references, citations, patterns, techniques and skills. By revisiting the history of 20^th- and 21^st- century design, Leonor Antunes offers a decentred approach to the established narratives of modernism, which are mostly male, heroic, linear, and not very inclusive. Tactfully using the symbolic power of the institutions that invite her to show her work, the artist brings the creations of other women artists back into circulation, as she accompanies and surrounds herself with the likes of Ana Hatherly, Franca Helg, Charlotte Perriand, Lina Bo Bardi, Marian Pepler, Sadie Speight and Sophie Taeuber. A number of sculptures presented in the exhibition make direct reference to those artists, whose names or initials appear in the titles.

The recurring presence of knots, meshes and nets reflects the care that Leonor Antunes puts into interlinking art figures, establishing new genealogies of affinity. These forms also draw from her interest in textile design, weaving, and a whole set of devalued techniques, often linked to crafts and so-called minor arts, as exemplified by a set of works made of wicker, leather, or glass beads. Similarly, the materials used to create the floor (cork, linoleum, brass) are relatively discredited and often associated with domestic spaces (and female spaces by extension). But here, Leonor Antunes gives them a place that is both monumental and central, since that floor both structures and interlinks all of the spaces.

For the exhibition in Lisbon, Leonor Antunes produced a new series of wooden openwork panels, which serve as both sculptures and components of the scenography. These panels were directly inspired by those that architect and designer Charlotte Perriand designed between 1966 and 1969 for the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Paris. Leonor Antunes uses them to present the work of other artists in the exhibition she curated at the CAM, but they also serve as a system for hanging her own works, reinforcing that permeability between sculpture and design which lies at the heart of her practice. Those wooden panels have the distinctive characteristic of being transparent while also concealing. They make possible a complex play of perspectives, and structure the space without constraining it.

Transparency and fluidity lie at the heart of the scenographic system that Leonor Antunes has implemented over time. Her works allow the gaze to pass through them, as they engage in a dialogue with one another through an infinite network of relations and affinities that can be constantly reconfigured. In this, the artist drew from the heritage of two major figures of design and architecture, the Italian Franco Albini (1905 – 1977) and the Italian-Brazilian Lina Bo Bardi (1914 – 1992). Bo Bardi designed one of Brazil’s largest museums, the MASP (Museu de Arte de São Paulo), in which she devised revolutionary principles of scenography, making it possible for the eyes to embrace a multitude of works. By decompartmentalising perceptions and spaces, it becomes possible to weave new links and build new narratives. In both Lisbon and Sète, there is no imposed path through the exhibition. Everyone is free to drift wherever their eyes lead them, in an intuitive, fluid, egalitarian relationship with the space.