The debate over so-called “gender ideology” attacks a series
of freedoms that have marked the democratization of public
space. How does art respond to this process?
My answer is an exhibition at Casa da Imagem,
curated by Henrique Siqueira and Monica Caldiron, that discusses
expressions of love, seduction, and sexuality in São Paulo’s public spaces
and how the city has responded to these issues over the past hundred years.
The exhibition has the suggestive title SÓLOVE, a catchphrase made famous
by a song by the duo Claudinho e Buchecha, historic icons of
Rio’s funk music, a cultural expression associated with parties and dances
charged with eroticism.
Divided into thematic sections, the exhibition uses images by invited artists
and works from the Museu da Cidade Photographic Collection and other
institutions to explore spaces of flirtation, territories of extramarital sex, such as
early twentieth-century cabarets and motels from the 1970s onward, and the
emergence of difference, with agendas related to the affirmation of
identity and gender politics that profoundly marked the late 1970s and the 1980s, extending to the new platforms for activism
emerging with the Internet.
New identities and old struggles
The images brought together in SÓLOVE form a cartography of
sexuality, ranging from public places such as the former Ilha dos Amores, where
Parque Dom Pedro stands today, to policies controlling the visibility of
sex and demonstrations that brought demands for women’s rights
and gender diversity onto the streets.
Among other moments, the exhibition presents photographs and essays
documenting the designation of a zone of tolerance for prostitution in Bom Retiro during the Estado Novo, as well as the repression of prostitution during the military dictatorship in Boca do Lixo and Boca do Luxo, recorded by Juca Martins in the 1970s, and the streets filled by the Gay Pride Parade.
SÓLOVE is on view at Casa da Imagem through July 7 and, in our current political context, is an urgent and necessary exhibition.
Opening image: Lula Ricardi, Hotel 66.
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