Carlos Zilio's Anteater Paintings Explore Memory, Politics and Personal Mythology

Carlos Zilio's exhibition features paintings centered on an anteater figure, a recurring motif since the 1980s representing hereditary saudade. The animal originated from a family pet owned by Zilio's father in the 1920s that died falling down stairs. Earlier works depicted the anteater in freefall, but this new series shows it upright and resurrected. Inspiration came from a stain on Zilio's studio floor that resembled the animal. Paintings like Tamanduá, os continentes e o cosmos (2013–14) present the anteater through swirling vortexes of paint reminiscent of Zilio's 1980s-90s style. Zilio trained with expressionist painter Iberê Camargo in the 1960s and participated in significant exhibitions including Opinião 66 and the ninth São Paulo Bienal. In 1968, he abandoned art to join revolutionary guerrilla group MR-8, was wounded in a 1969 shootout, imprisoned for two-and-a-half years, and exiled to France in 1976. Curator Ronaldo Brito's catalogue text compares Zilio's work to Gerhard Richter's October 18, 1977 series about the Baader-Meinhof gang, noting similar dreamlike shadows and memory exploration. The exhibition was reviewed in the January & February 2015 issue of ArtReview.