A queer eye on art history
Like feminism, are sexual dissidences and queer activism transforming traditional art history discourses? What is the role of art in the ways gender is experienced and represented? In the 11th Caderno Sesc_Videobrasil – An Alliance of Vulnerable Bodies: Feminisms, Queer Activism and Visual Culture, the Peruvian curator Miguel A. López pulls together visual essays and articles that attest to the impact of body-based forms of critical opposition upon the history and grammars of art. The annual magazine published in partnership by Edições Sesc São Paulo and Associação Cultural Videobrasil will be launched on March 28 (Monday), 8pm at the Livraria da Vila bookstore on Fradique Coutinho Street.
"Since the 1960s, the art field has been witnessing the emergence of feminist and LGBT initiatives that challenge the norms of body representation and access to visibility,” says López. “Awareness has been raised about how institutions and art history are disciplinary spaces for the body and vision, deciding what is and isn’t worthy of being seen. Recently, feminism and the queer theory began reclaiming the relevance of works by artists whose identities fall outside the norm, and questioning the patriarchal, heterosexual, colonial, white-centric construction of art history and the academic discourse,” the curator concludes.
With a layout that relies on the color red to convey the intensity of discussions on gender, body, post-pornography, desire and activism, the Caderno 11 features theoretical texts and commissioned visual essays. In the article that inspired the publication’s cover, the Brazilian researcher Fernanda Nogueira traces back the history of Movimento de Arte Pornô (MAP, the Porno Art Movement), a collective that waved the banner of sexual liberation in the early 1980s. Using the slogan “revolution and pleasure,” artists and poets including Eduardo Kac and Claufe Rodrigues created public actions aiming to liberate sensuality, subvert language and express solidarity with minorities in Brazil. The experience will be the topic of a conversation marking the publication launch, featuring Miguel A. López and Fernanda Nogueira.
In an essay with a biographical tone, the American critic Julia Bryan-Wilson relates the early audiovisual experimentation by filmmaker Miranda July, who, in the 1980s, dropped out of film school – which she saw as a realm of exclusively male ideas – and created an alternative circuit for people to exchange female narratives in video. The Spanish transgender researcher Paul B. Preciado examines the art-pornography connection, tracing the origin of the term back to the context of European museums. Stark visual collaborations from Colectivo Universitario de Disidencia Sexual (Chile), anti-aids activism researcher Aimar Arriola (Spain), the artists Ming Wong (Singapore) and Catherine Lord (USA), as well as the Argentinean artist-activist group Serigrafistas Queer address the relationship between art and gender.
Caderno includes two additions: the poster-folder Museu Travestí del Perú, a project by the Peruvian philosopher and drag queen Giuseppe Campuzano (1969-2013) that proposes a critical revision of the history of Peru from the perspective of the fictional figure of the “androgynous indigenous/mestizo transvestite” and a stencil, created by Serigrafistas Queer [the Queer Serigraphers], of the sentence “El machismo mata!” [Sexism kills]. The “gift,” which readers can use in order to spread the idea, echoes one of López’s wishes for the Caderno: that its reading/enjoyment can “inspire people to keep imagining and fighting for alternative ways of loving and living.”
THE CURATOR
Peruvian writer, curator, researcher, and artist, Miguel A. López’s work offers a South American outlook on topics such as the practices associated with gender dissidences, and the re-articulation of art history from a queer perspective. As a guest curator for the 31st São Paulo Art Biennial (2014), he presented the room Dios Es Marica, featuring queer-art pieces by Iberian-American artists of the 1970s-80s, and Museu Travesti do Peru [the Transvestite Museum of Peru], an attempt at introducing a gay counter-narrative of the country’s history.
ABOUT THE MAGAZINE
Caderno Sesc_Videobrasil is an annual contemporary art magazine exploring the development of curatorial concepts in print medium. Since 2005, each of its editions has been entrusted to guest curators/editors who amass contributions and essays from artists and researchers on the matters at hand, such as the use of archives in contemporary art (Elvira Dyangani Ose), the notion of belonging (Moacir dos Anjos) and the role of periodical publications in art (Rodrigo Moura). Among other curators, Caderno has been handled by Fernando Oliva, Lisette Lagnado, Marcelo Rezende, Paula Alzugaray and José Augusto Ribeiro (find out more here: www.videobrasil.org.br/publicacoes).
ABOUT EDIÇÕES SESC SÃO PAULO
Sesc’s publishing arm Edições Sesc São Paulo aims to broaden the organization’s reach by catering to an ever-growing audience. Its catalog spans multiple areas of knowledge, with an emphasis on arts and human sciences, and drawing from Sesc’s agenda of art, education and culture as its primary source of content.
ABOUT ASSOCIAÇÃO CULTURAL VIDEOBRASIL
Associação Cultural Videobrasil was established in order to manage a growing collection of artworks and publications amassed since the first edition of the Festival, created in 1983, and held in partnership with Sesc São Paulo since 1992. The Association works to safeguard and activate that collection, which comprises artworks from the global South, video art classics, its own productions, and a vast array of art publications available for free consultation at its headquarters: Galpão VB.
FACT SHEET
Caderno Sesc_Videobrasil 11 – An Alliance of Vulnerable Bodies: Feminisms, Queer Activism and Visual Culture
Edited by: Miguel A. López
Edições Sesc São Paulo & Associação Cultural Videobrasil
Year: 2015
Pages: 144 p
Format: 18 × 24 cm
Portuguese/English
ISBN: 978-85-69298-42-7
Price: R$ 60,00 (reais)
SERVICE
Launch of the publication Caderno Sesc_Videobrasil 11 – An Alliance of Vulnerable Bodies: Feminisms, Queer Activism and Visual Culture
Date: March 28, 2016, at 8pm
Conversation with Miguel A. López and Fernanda Nogueira, moderated by Teté Martinho
Where: Livraria da Vila Bookstore (Fradique Coutinho Street, 915 – Pinheiros district – São Paulo)
Free admission
The publications on culture and contemporary art released by Edições Sesc São Paulo/Associação Cultural Videobrasil are available at all Sesc SP units (capital and statewide), major bookstores, online at www.sescsp.org.br/livraria and at the Galpão VB store.