the lusophile

Capitain Petzel is pleased to announce The lie, the larp and the lusophile, Austin Martin White’s second solo exhibition with the gallery, spanning its entire exhibition space.

Drawing on the legacy of the celebrated Brazilian Baroque sculptor Antônio Francisco Lisboa (c. 1738–1814), known as Aleijadinho, whose biography has long oscillated between documented history and national myth, White presents portraits of the artist alongside depictions of his prophet sculptures and references to the woodcut covers of literatura de cordel, the popular printed booklets of Northeastern Brazil, where folklore, religion, politics, and history readily converge. Together, these motifs explore the unstable relationship between historical fact, national myth, and cultural identity.

Working across a range of media—including rubber, acrylic, spray paint, vinyl, reflective fabric, and screen mesh—White investigates representations of historical memory through archival research, examining the intersections of identity, colonial histories, and systems of representation.