Amador e Jr. Segurança Patrimonial Ltda.

Artificial intelligence will soon knock us off our feet, but for now we can still glimpse remnants of humanity in certain trades whose existence wavers between contradictions and resistance. Such is the situation of the art critic, and also of the security guard, a profession that is the source of artistic research for Antonio Gonzaga Amador and Jandir Jr. This is from where the Amador and Jr. Segurança Patrimonial Ltda. performance company emerged. Duly uniformed – suit and tie always – they have been making their mark on the market over the years. The duo specializes in safeguarding art galleries, exhibitions, salons, biennials, and the like. Sometimes you will see them standing right in front of a work, stalling its appreciation (Sem título [Untitled], 2016); in others, you can find them immersed in books (Ler [Read], 2023), staring downwards (Chão [Floor], 2023) or even with eyes tightly closed during working hours (Vigilante [Watchman], 2016). All in order to serve you better, ladies and gentlemen.

In these performances, the weapons used to defend the heritage of others are mockery and irony, but the game is not restricted to the scope of humor. Antonio and Jandir use their own bodies to set up logic bombs through a tensioned presence; they mine a field where the structures of our formation are exploding under our feet: institutional racism, the exploitation of workers, the precariat, the sinister persistence of slavery, in other words, the maintenance of the elites who consume art.

Formally, it is an overlap. Amador e Jr. Segurança Patrimonial Ltda. has the expertise to double the spaces where it performs; if the floor area is 100 square meters, it can easily reach 200 square meters, or even more. However, it is worth remembering that this unusual phenomenon can only be achieved on the brain surface of the public, who, if not obtaining the additional terrain, will at least be able to leave having a good laugh, without having understood the joke.

igor de albuquerque
translated from Portuguese by philip somervell

Amador e Jr. Segurança Patrimonial Ltda. is a series of performative proposals idealized and realized by Antonio Gonzaga Amador (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1991. Lives in Rio de Janeiro) and Jandir Jr. (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1989. Lives in Rio de Janeiro). The artists, camouflaged as security guards, question the role of (marginalized) bodies of workers in institutional situations through unexpected actions in exhibition spaces. Amador e Jr. Segurança Patrimonial Ltda. has participated in exhibitions at Museu Paranaense (Curitiba, PR, Brazil), Centro Cultural São Paulo (São Paulo, Brazil), Museu da República and Museu de Arte do Rio (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil).