Bidspirit auction | SANTOS (Abílio-José). [ELECTROGRAFIAS - TORSO

SANTOS (Abílio-José). [ELECTROGRAFIAS - TORSO FEMININO FRAGMENTADO]. [Porto / Maia]. s.d. [c. 1970-1992]. - SANTOS (Abílio-José) [ELECTROGRAFIAS - TORSO FEMININO FRAGMENTADO] . [Porto / Maia]: s.n., s.d. [c. 1970-1992]. 4 ff.: il.; 300×210 mm. Assinatura autógrafa do artista a lápis na última electrografia da série; electrografias numeradas no verso. Abílio-José Santos (Maia, 1926 - 1992) was a poet, draftsman, and designer, one of the most radical and committed figures in Portuguese experimental art. A self-taught artist, he attended the Machinery and Electrotechnics course at the Industrial Institute of Porto. His work articulates a strong plastic component with varied printing techniques – engraving, lithography, monotype, collage, and electrography – deliberately using poor and waste materials in a poetics of Dadaist influence. He is represented in the main anthologies of Portuguese visual and concrete poetry, including the Anthology of Concrete Poetry in Portugal (ed. EM de Melo e Castro and José-Alberto Marques, 1973) and the founding volume PO.EX: Theoretical Texts and Documents of Portuguese Experimental Poetry (ed. Ana Hatherly and EM de Melo e Castro, 1981). He participated in the XIV São Paulo Biennial (1977) as a Portuguese representative. His vast body of work circulated predominantly in alternative and mail art circuits, giving it international recognition disproportionate to its almost total absence from the institutional market. The four electrographs gathered here present a nude female torso treated using the technique of manipulated photocopying: the body is sectioned into misaligned rectangular blocks, creating a fragmentation and offset that subverts the original photographic image and transforms it into a visual poem. The exploration of the expressive possibilities of the photocopier – grainy texture, gradations of black, intentional distortion – is a central characteristic of Abílio-José Santos's production from the 1970s onwards. One of the sheets bears the autograph signature ”Abílio” in the lower right corner. A rare and prized collection. ⚑ Auto-translated via Google Translate