My Black Utopia is therefore about black protagonism. It cannot be reduced to just ‘grab and copy’, as O Bastardo says; rather it is ‘grab and project to another horizon’, as in Plato’s ‘Allegory of the Cave’. In this text the philosopher shows how people shackled in place since childhood believed that the shadows projected on the walls were the only existing realities. Well, our artist shows us how every painting holds other possibilities and thus invites us to look again and see differently.

A Gentil Carioca is pleased to announce “My Black Utopia”, the first exhibition by the artist O Bastardo at A Gentil Carioca São Paulo, opening on November 9th, Saturday, from 2pm to 7pm. The critical text is signed by Lilia Schwarcz, who points out: “My Black Utopia is therefore about black protagonism. It cannot be reduced to just ‘grab and copy’, as O Bastardo says; rather, it is ‘grab and project to another horizon’, as in Plato’s ‘Allegory of the Cave’. In this text, the philosopher shows how people shackled in place since childhood believed that the shadows projected on the walls were the only existing realities. Well, our artist shows us how every painting holds other possibilities – expressed or hidden –, and thus invites us to look again and see differently.” Through a process of appropriating symbols and icons present in canonical works of Western art history, O Bastardo proposes the creation of a utopian world where the figures in these works inhabit a parallel reality, marked by the presence and protagonism of the black figure. The artist describes this process as a “trampling” of the classics, an overlapping that exposes the existence of this alternative universe.