S&M (saints & martyrs) is a series on a Self who is overwhelmed by the sense of the vastness and power of nature, by a confrontation with finitude, and by an intuition or imagination of an invisible world. Those figures are humbled and submissive in their surrender, which carries an erotic dimension.
Wax sculptures and gouache paintings are created specially to be photographed, after which they are recycled. Photography here functions as proscenium. It is where things happen and where things are kept. The narratives are condensed into one image, which captures a heightened moment of doom or apotheosis.
The work investigates the politics of desire and is also a reflection of experience. As it happens, in my native Rio, I lived in front of the statue of Saint Sebastian, patron saint of the city, of queer people (if unofficially), and Oxóssi for the African Brazilian religions. Even though I was not raised Catholic, I was immersed in such visuality. It was difficult to see international art at the time, as there was a boycott against the dictatorship, and exhibitions did not travel to Brazil. My museum was made of photographs. Photographs that passed themselves as paintings and sculptures. One learned about the history of painting, for example, by looking at photographs, which is a paradigmatic experience for a citizen of the Global South.
The work is not descriptive of the experience of a Latino immigrant, or of a gay man, as a description is meant for those who do not share an experience, made for their sake. The work rather wants to embody in its very flesh the concepts and experiences that originate it. It crosses borders, it is hybrid and genre fluid, queer in content and form.
S&M (saints & martyrs)
2017-ongoing
1.
Saints & Martyrs is a series of photographs of painting/sculptures (which are destroyed after shot. They existed for the lens). The work is genre fluid, queer in content and form (‘purity is a myth,’ proclaimed Hélio Oiticica).
2.
Photography is a drawer of dead-loved leftovers. But we throw away the keys. that is the deal. Here photography is an arena. The presentness of sculpture added to the past tense of photography creates a suspended time.
3.
Those are languid men. They are odalisques and nymphs and goddesses, ready for the taking. They are saints who give their body and life to the beloved, big brother and father. Those men are in control in erotic abandon. Here is my body, it is yours, take it, do with it what you will - please (me).
4.
All Art History survey books are books of photographs. Photographs engaged as transparent windows and also as placeholders for the ‘real experience.’ Like porn to sex. Photos that are anonymous artworks, invisible in their profusion, blamed for the degradation of the aura of the originals. And yet, it is often through them that we fall in love with works of art in painting and sculpture. We fell in love with photographs pretending to be paintings.
5.
Informed by Brazilian bodies of trance. Saints from Candomblé who mount, penetrate the body, who possess the lover. Saints in Christian churches, which readily give their bodies to the unseen male just outside the frame (Him), with lustmord. Becoming for love.
S&M (saints & martyrs) at satchel projects, nyc, 2022.