ANTONIO DIAS

The opening will take place on February 10th (Tuesday) at 6 pm, and the exhibition will remain on view through March 21st. Among the works on view, the exhibition highlights seven paintings from the Marconi provenance, produced by Antonio Dias between 1968 and 1971, during his early years in Milan, marking a pivotal moment in the artist’s career.

On March 14th (Saturday), at 11 am, a publication accompanying the exhibition will be launched. Also organised and written by Gustavo Motta, the book presents the complete body of the artist’s works maintained by Gió Marconi, along with additional documentation on the period in which they were produced. On the occasion of the launch, a roundtable will be held with Gustavo Motta, Sergio Martins, and Lara Cristina Casares Rivetti. The conversation will be moderated by Deyson Gilbert.

Born in Campina Grande (PB, Brazil) in 1944, Antonio Dias moved with his family to Rio de Janeiro in 1957, where he began his artistic career, gaining recognition for a body of work soon associated with Pop Art and New Figuration. In the mid-1960s, in a context marked by Brazil’s Military Dictatorship, the artist left the country for Paris after receiving a French government grant for his participation in the 4th Paris Biennale. In Europe, Dias’s work assumed a more conceptual configuration, attracting the attention of gallerist Giorgio Marconi (1930–2024), founder of Studio Marconi (1965–1992)—a space that, from its inception, became a reference point for contemporary art in Milan.

Under the gallery’s representation, Dias decided to establish himself in the city, where he maintained one of his residences until the end of his life. There, he established close relationships with artists such as Mario Schifano, Luciano Fabro, Alighiero Boetti, and Giulio Paolini. The works from this period, presented in the exhibition, reflect the consolidation of the artist’s conceptual language during his early years in Europe, marked by formal precision, with austere surfaces combined with words, phrases, or diagrams that function as self-reflexive commentaries on artistic practice as a mental activity. This period anticipates—and in part coincides with—the production of the series The Illustration of Art (1971–78), considered one of the artist’s most emblematic bodies of work.

The works produced by Dias in Milan synthesise a decisive turning point in the artist’s career, in which painting becomes at once more austere and more reflective. Through large monochromatic fields, isolated words, and precisely diagrammed structures, the artist reduces the image to its essentials and transforms the canvas into a space for thought. As Motta explains, what is seen becomes less important than what is absent: painting begins to operate as an open device, inviting the viewer to complete meanings and to generate mental images. By incorporating graphic procedures derived from design and mass communication, Dias shifts painting away from the field of representation toward that of problematisation, articulating—in his own words—a ‘negative art’ that reflects on the very status of the image and on artistic practice as an intellectual activity. Within this body of work, a language is consolidated in which the artwork offers no answers, but instead presents itself as a field of tension between word, surface, and imagination.

The exhibition in São Paulo follows the show presented by Sprovieri in London in October 2025, composed of works from the same period—all belonging to Gió Marconi, son of Giorgio Marconi. At the helm of Galleria Gió Marconi since 1990, after working with his father at the experimental space for young artists known as Studio Marconi 17 (1987–1990), Gió is also responsible for Fondazione Marconi, founded in 2004 with the purpose of continuing the legacy of the former Studio Marconi.

Among the works presented in the Gomide&Co exhibition are paintings that were included in Antonio Dias’s inaugural solo exhibition at Studio Marconi in 1969, accompanied by a critical text by Tommaso Trini, as well as in the most recent exhibition devoted to the artist by the foundation, Antonio Dias – Una collezione, 1968–1976 (2017). The selection also comprises works shown on other important occasions in the artist’s career, such as the historic (and controversial) Guggenheim International Exhibition of 1971 and the 34th Bienal de São Paulo (2021).

The exhibition at Gomide&Co also stands out for offering a more contemporary perspective on Dias’s early years in Milan. The gallery brought together a young and widely respected team to renew perspectives on the artist’s production from this period. The exhibition is organised by Gustavo Motta, currently regarded as one of the most prominent intellectual voices of the new generation working on Antonio Dias, and curator of Antonio Dias / Arquivo / O Lugar do Trabalho at the Instituto de Arte Contemporânea (IAC) in 2021—an exhibition based on the artist’s documentary archive held by the institution. The exhibition design is by artist Deyson Gilbert, who was also responsible for the expography of Motta’s exhibition at the IAC. In the context of the gallery show, Gilbert’s proposal seeks to reflect and extend the aesthetic process intrinsic to Dias’s production during this period.

In addition to the works, the exhibition presents an unprecedented selection of documents from the Fundo Antonio Dias in the IAC archive, including materials that were not yet available at the time of the 2021 exhibition. Completing the team is the M-CAU studio, led by artist Maria Cau Levy, responsible for the graphic design of the publication.

Bringing together historic works, previously unseen documentation, and a team that engages directly with Antonio Dias’s critical legacy, the exhibition reaffirms the relevance and complexity of the artist’s production in an international context. ANTONIO DIAS / IMAGE + MIRAGE offers not only a reconsideration of a decisive moment in Dias’s career, but also a renewed reading of his contribution to conceptual art, underscoring how the questions he formulated in the late 1960s continue to resonate powerfully within contemporary debate.