SERIES ‘ME AND THE OTHERS’ [2013-2018], FRANCISCO HURTZ
Masculinity is given by the approval of the other man’s gaze in society: it is a set of rules, codes and behaviors that define desirable common characteristics for men. Any breach of these rules in social life is immediately denounced and punished, as in a dispute where there are losers and winners.
To the winners: glory, the podium, the example, the prize, eternity; to losers: humiliation, invisibility, erasure, oblivion, silence. Society is exercised in fields of domination forces where structural inequality is the main factor for the conservation of the status quo. Dominants will always be dominant, dominated will always be dominated, those are the rules of the game.
As in sports, society chooses rules that define who loses and who wins; the rules, strategies and fields of dispute; the notions of success and failure; feelings of collectivity, belonging and competition; also the passion for the dispute and the identification of the adversary. In the series Eu e os Outros, Francisco Hurtz investigates Patriarchy through the metaphor of sports competitions in its Queer universe.
ALAIR GOMES`S SYMPHONY OF EROTIC ICONS
This visual narrative is dedicated to touching. To the touch itself, the touch on the other, the impossible touch, the observant touch. When we’re gradually returning to the physicality of our interactions, it’s resumed a touch always censured and condemned: the one of the homoerotic desire, the intimal corporal touch between men. VERVE brings to SP-ARTE the tension of the non-touch on the work of Alair Gomes, one of the biggest photographers of male nude in the world, with works on the collection of MoMA, MASP and Fondation Cartier.
This symphony of erotic icons, from the Renata Phoenix collection, set forth that the fundamental concern of the photographer is not about the touch itself, but about the many possibilities about touching. After all, icons can be touched? Exposing his desire, Gomes protects it: places and exhibits the untouched body under a dome, forbidding the future touch. Where privation and revelation are side by side, it’s decreed that this body, from now on, will only be touched by the light.
On the photos, the light touches, rubs and excites the body where the tongue is shy, making it touch the palate of the observer dictating the musicality of the desired body: serene, but also brutal. This harsh dance between the body and the swing of the will-to-possess agitates the live flesh statues photographed by Gomes, on the tension of what’s asked by the skin.
Photography is usually used to provide an identification of the viewer with the portrayed. In this case, however, the dynamic is shifted: we identify ourselves with the photographer, that represses the touch, craves the contemplation and allows the desired body to interact with his biggest ally, what he’ll never will be able to be: the light.
