MANIFESTO OF A PORNOGRAPHIC CURATOR

We want to celebrate eroticism and discover talent, bringing visibility to artists and creating connections with collectors. Giving deserved attention to an incredibly rich segment of art, but one that still lacks promotion. Arousing desire, legitimizing the marginal, exalting the degenerate, simply admiring quality art is our flame of resistance.

Erotic art should be appreciated and consumed like other arts: for its poetry, aesthetics, and plasticity. As one of the most beautiful manifestations of the individual, in the fullness of sex and love. However, in our provincial and colonial lands, eroticism still shocks an ignorant, prudish, traditional, and hypocritical elite.

In this context, talking about eroticism becomes a political act, inappropriately so. It should just be art, period. But considering that we face many other structural problems makes our considerations irrelevant. We cannot forget that we still suffer censorship and lack freedom of expression, even though we live in a democracy.

We are very proud today to be at the forefront of a Festival that aims to promote the sensual, the erotic, and the pornographic within contemporary visual arts. In our first public call for entries, receiving more than 200 submissions is a sign that—yes!—there are many artists who need to be discovered and presented to the world.

Semantics should matter little; content should matter more, because the explicit does not always excite, and often only mystery leads to pleasure. Some artists' fear of uttering words like erotic and pornographic stems from a mixture of oppression and fear of not being accepted. This needs to change, and everyone will have to swallow it: galleries, the market, and institutions. Let's stop the hypocrisy and surrender to our lust, passion, and pleasure! Sex and perversions are part of our wildest instincts, and repression often leads to suffering.

Let's enjoy ourselves! Without fear of being happy!

We have a lot of work ahead of us, and this Festival is just the beginning of a long-standing desire to change the world. Many new projects are already being discussed, and we want to increasingly ensure diversity in terms of body types, ethnicities, and sexual orientations. This involves not only selecting artists and works, but also promoting artistic production, which is still polarized by standards demanded by society.

In this second edition, we feature artists who have been persecuted and censored in other exhibitions, who return with new works receiving the space they deserve, without prejudice or taboos, resisting and challenging boundaries. Others present totally visceral work in non-explicit pieces, portrayed without filters and in an analogical way. Good humor and flirtatiousness flirt with classic oil painting techniques, and sculpture takes on a pop and innovative format. The preciousness in the execution of realistic contemporary watercolors integrates with the fantastic universe of digital arts. All discoveries and contemplations ultimately lead us to a multiplicity of techniques and materials such as ceramics, wood, and tapestry, proving that the erotic universe orbits fully and pulsatingly around the creativity of us all.

PAULO CIBELLA