How Is Sexuality Represented In Current Latin American Art?
Art has the potential to capture the worldviews of a particular society, culture, and historical moment on a material medium. There are those who claim that art is a key to opening a new perspective on reality; also those who maintain that through artistic manifestations it is possible to enunciate or make visible a reading about the world that a group already shared in advance to put it into discussion. Whatever the case, we can agree that it is impossible to conceive art in isolation from the context in which it is produced. Artists represent through their works the changes in conceptions about certain issues that concern all human life among them, sexuality.
Doesn’t it strike us how frequent the representation of erotic scenes and human genitalia is in classical, Greek and Roman art? Analyzing these works from a historical perspective, it is logical and expected that these works were like this (the Greeks had a particular moral system and lived with the nude on a daily basis, both with the statues that adorned the cities and with the bodies of men and women. women who practiced sports). And it is also expected that, for us, this art will draw our attention or arouse some interest (even horror), since the modern notion of affectivity, as it has been developed since approximately the 16th-17th centuries, is incompatible with the worldview of the Greek world.
Now: have we ever stopped to analyze how sexuality is currently represented in art? The conception of sexuality in recent decades—especially after the sixties, with the invention of the contraceptive pill, the decline of motherhood as an unquestioned imperative, and the theorizing about what “being a woman” means—has changed, without room for doubt. The notion of sexuality has been partially separated from the hegemonic biological perspective.
After the sixties, sexuality extends beyond reproduction and marriage: it implies the pursuit of one’s own sexual desire, until then prohibited for women, and therefore a perspective of sexuality linked to enjoyment and pleasure emerges. This conception became tangible in artistic expressions and acquired its particularities in different scenarios, including Latin America, the cradle of great artists and thinkers. For that reason, in this article we will see certain keys about How sexuality is represented in Latin American art of the 20th and 21st centuries
The climate of rebellion at a global level had not yet reached its climax when the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo painted Still life (1942) at the request of the wife of the president of Mexico at that time, Manuel Ávila Camacho. The fruits represented in this painting symbolize, either explicitly or subtly, different organs and parts of the female body. The kahlo.org website highlights how the papaya in the center of this painting looks like a uterus full of sperm swimming in it.
Kahlo’s vision of sexuality—congruent with how she lived hers, according to her biographies—is revolutionary and even ahead of its time There is a tendency to conceive that the great historical and artistic changes have taken place under the light of Europe and North America; However, as this work demonstrates, it is possible to trace that these new ways of thinking about sexuality (accepting the fact that women are desiring and that it is valid to experience the pleasures of one’s own body) were also present in Latin American territory.
In general, Frida Kahlo’s works delve into the topic of female sexuality. In the paint Prime (1943) obvious symbols of a sexual nature are shown. For their part, many critics observe Estate (1943) Frida’s frustration at being a mother; Also, clearly, the artist exposes the spontaneous abortion that she suffered in 1930, becoming material in the painting Henry Ford Hospital either The bed flying (1932). Frida Kahlo was one of the greatest exponents of sexuality in Latin American art of the 20th century, since she placed her advanced vision of female sexuality in the public sphere.
However, as was mentioned at the beginning, it is difficult to exhaustively analyze a work if we omit the events that surround it, which go beyond what was captured in a material medium. Still life It was destined for the Los Pinos dining room of the presidential palace of Mexico, but was later returned for its erotic symbolism. The history surrounding this work manages to show that the change in worldview regarding sexuality did not occur overnight, but was gradual and, along the way, generated resistance from rather traditional agents and sectors of society
“How to say “I wish”? —Women don’t desire, we only have children— (…) And when he (husband) reaches his selfish orgasm, you can’t yell at him, I’m not finished…”: so says a poem by the Guatemalan Ana María Rodas, from 1973. From the second half of the 20th century, according to Fariña Busto, after the silencing of the patriarchal and misogynistic culture of women’s voices in relation to their sexuality, at this historical moment the words of women writers came to stay, and also to talk about sex and pleasure in Latin America. This author highlights the affirmative and self-confident voice (which does not mean free of contradiction) from the poem of Rhodes; as well as the construction of a vital project where pleasure was lived with joy and the energy of those who believe they deserve it.
Other poems by Rodas also invite us to get rid of cultural impositions regarding what the female body should be like (he says: “Let’s wash our hair / And let’s undress our body / I have it and so do you / sister…”); and others question normative masculinity.
For its part, Some poems by the Argentine Alejandra Pizarnik also reflected the possibility of putting feminine desire into words: “A flower / Not far from the night / My mute body / Opens / To the delicate urgency of dew” (Lovers, 1965). We could cite several other writers to show that all these texts are different “strokes” on this new vision of human sexuality.
Sexuality in music
Finally, it is necessary to mention the place of sexuality in the music produced in Latin America. In particular, referring to urban music or reggaeton, which has been booming since the 21st century. This type of music has established itself as the favorite, in general terms, in the taste of the young Spanish-speaking population. Reggaeton makes explicit or implicit reference to sexuality There is a tendency to trivialize this type of music, but it is still a manifestation produced at a certain time and place and, therefore, we consider that it should be analyzed like any other.
In this type of music, the allusion to sexuality – in the holistic sense of the word, conceiving not only sex but also how we assume our identity, our practices and values in relation to gender roles, etc. – is a recurring theme. , as it is also among young people, a social group that is consumer and producer of urban rhythms.
However, not all songs have the same position regarding sexuality. While it is true that in recent years many songs and albums have been produced that emphasize the importance of emotional responsibility, acceptance of one’s body as it is, enjoyment of it, etc., there are also many others that express in their semantics an asymmetric relationship between men and women and replicate gender stereotypes.
These stereotypes become obsolete in relation to the new perspectives on sexuality that we have developed. The woman is usually represented as a sexual and submissive object and the man as strong and distant on an emotional level Therefore, starting from the assumption that artistic manifestations respond to specific readings about the world, we could infer that although a change is occurring, we have not yet completely rid ourselves of the vision based on gender roles, private and hidden. human sexuality.
