Capitain Petzel Gallery, Berlin, is currently presenting “The lie, the larp and the lusophile” by Austin Martin White. Through paintings and works on paper, White investigates the construction of historical memory, exploring postcolonial histories and the ways images shape cultural narratives while addressing the unstable boundary between historical fact, national myth, and cultural identity.

At the core of the exhibition is the legacy of the Brazilian Baroque sculptor Antônio Francisco Lisboa (c. 1738–1814), known as Aleijadinho, whose biography has long oscillated between documented history and legend. White presents portraits of the artist alongside depictions of his prophet sculptures at the Sanctuary of Bom Jesus de Matosinhos in Congonhas. Other paintings draw on the woodcut covers of literatura de cordel, the popular printed booklets of Northeastern Brazil in which folklore, religion, politics, and history converge.

Using acrylic, spray-paint, vinyl, 3m reflective fabric and screen mesh mediums, White has developed a unique approach that combines paintings and works on paper with printmaking techniques, intertwining his themes with the historical conditions of the materials themselves.

The play of references permeating throughout his work operates like active traces that continuously recur in the past and influence the present. The artist explores and reworks images that shape our historical memory, drawing on archival research of 17th and 18th century image production through mediums such as prints, tapestries, and paintings.

Austin Martin White (b. 1984, Detroit, MI) lives and works in Philadelphia, PA. He has been included in group exhibitions at the Southampton Arts Center, New York (2025); the Oakland University Art Gallery, Rochester (2025); and the Jewish Museum, New York (2024). The artist had his first solo exhibition at Capitain Petzel, Berlin, in 2022, followed by solo shows at Petzel, New York, in 2023 and 2025.

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