Indecencia [Review]
Arantxa Araujo. Mi Cuerpa, 2022. Biological material (one ovule, blood, water), brass, glass, LEDs, arduino, wooden base.12.6 x 9.8 x 9.8 in. Courtesy of the artist.
“Theology happens in the body, whether understood as spiritual or fleshy, inner or outer.”
–Amy Hollywood
“Eroticism and hunger are sites of pain and liberation.”
–Marcella Althaus-Reid
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The exhibition Indecencia, curated by artist Nicolás Dumit Estévez at the Leslie-Lohman Museum, provides an aesthetic context inspired by Indecent Theology, a theoretical framework coined by Argentinean Marcella Althaus-Reid (1952–2009). In the words of the author:
“Indecent Theology is a theology which problematizes and undresses the mythical layers of multiple oppression in Latin America, a theology which, finding its point of departure at the crossroads of Liberation Theology and Queer Thinking, will reflect on economic and theological oppression with passion and imprudence.”
The curatorial proposal questions ideas around "latinidad" and its relationship to religion, enfleshment, and sexuality. This selection of Latinx artists prove that representation and reflection on the margins of gender identity and sexuality need not be condemned to secularism. Through a wide diversity of media in which ephemeral acts are the protagonists, the exhibition addresses themes regarding the performativity of desire and self-determination, the seemingly contradictory religious cultures in Latin America, and the possible atonement for the abundance of guilt and resentment we have inherited from different processes of colonization.
Carlos Martiel. Encomienda, 2018. Single channel video, color, sound Run time: 25 min. Wall painted map of the Americas. Dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist
Photo: (c) Bryson Rand, 2022. Courtesy of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art.
Two works by Carlos Martiel address the invisibility of racial minorities in Latin America in relation to land and national identities. In Encomienda (2019), a title that refers to the feudal right granted by the Spanish Crown to conquistadors to use native labor in the newly invaded lands, the Black Cuban-born artist appears naked and kneeling in front of a map of the Americas lacking territorial divisions. According to the curatorial text, the piece allows us to question who has been excluded in the construction of “latinidad,” arguing that it has been intrinsically a project of exploitation and servitude, not limited to nation-state constructions. In a few decades, the enslaved class went from being largely indigenous to also including Africans who were victims of the transatlantic slave trade. In Reconomicento (2019), the artist is locked in a concrete sarcophagus until he is forcefully freed by two people of color holding sledgehammers. The brutality of the act of destroying the sarcophagus occurs in juxtaposition to the fragility of the naked body. This metaphor serves as an effort that the curator calls an “anti-monument” to the civilizing plan of the violence of colonial slavery.
Las Yeguas del Apocalipsis (Pedro Lemebel and Francisco Casas). Refundación de la Universidad de Chile (The Refounding of the University of Chile), 1988. Pigment prints, 2022. Photographer: Ulises Nilo. Courtesy of the Las Yeguas del Apocalipsis. Archives.
Photo: (c) Bryson Rand, 2022. Courtesy of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art.
Of the various works selected by the Chilean collective Las Yeguas del Apocalipsis, formed by Pedro Lemebel and Francisco Casas Silva, Refundación de la Universidad de Chile (1988), overturns the imaginary of European foundational domination, so closely linked to the establishment of universities and other institutions of power in Latin America. The gesture occurred in the same year that a national plebiscite was held on the future of Pinochet's military dictatorship, which prompted a change of government. The poets Carmen Berenguer, Carolina Jerez, and Nadia Prado, hold the reins of the mare, on which the two naked men ride, as a denunciation of the exclusion of cultural minorities in Chile at the time. While we question the role of monuments in our public space, this piece advances the need to subvert the commemoration of patriarchal systems with a poetics of dignified vulnerability for the bodies invisibilized by such systems.
A highlight of the exhibition is the work Mi Cuerpa [the masculine noun 'cuerpo' has been altered to the feminine in Spanish] (2022) by Mexican artist Arantxa Araujo, in which the artist shows her own unfertilized ovum, preserved in blood, inside a monstrance framed and contrasting the cross with a feminine symbol. Here, the monstrance, used in Catholicism exclusively to worship the consecrated Eucharist, preserves the neuralgic argument of one of the most debated topics of our time: the sanctity of life. The monstrance is only employed after the phenomenon of transubstantiation, in which the Catholic faith affirms that the bread becomes the very living body of Christ. Where and when does life begin? Who has the authority to interrupt, conceive, or summon it? Organized religion has taken its position. Meanwhile, in the public arena we still negotiate our disagreements, with imminent consequences for the lives of millions of women, especially with respect to working-class women and their social mobility and personal autonomy. Other questions prompted by this piece: What role has the Christian religion played in liberating women in a region as battered by class oppression as Latin America? The artist takes this common liturgical, theological, ontological, and political idea—the body is divine—but confronts us with the unanswered question: what are the mechanisms of its defense and to whom do they belong?
The dialectical tension between perversion and moral decency is permanent and has been expressed in practices such as self-flagellation, for example, to mortify the flesh and sanctify the body. On display is a whip used by Cuban-born Carmelita Tropicana in the exhibition Cuba: the Possible Island (1995) in Barcelona. The piece was inspired by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648-1695), who, according to the artist, “was not a mystic, [but a woman] who wrote sadomasochistic poems to María Luisa, a viceroy.” Among the objects exhibited from her performances are dog collars and two postcards of the famous portrait of Sor Juana by painter Miguel Cabrera. One of them shows the poet's face covered by the image of an Anima Sola in purgatory. “And when at the blow of one and another shot / her heart surrendered, she gave painful signs of giving her last sigh / […] Who in love has been happier?” say Sor Juana's famous verses, referring to the submission suffered in erotic and/or mystical passion. Althaus elaborates on this in her book Indecent Theology (2000):
“Stories of sexual fetishism present us with a mimicry of salvation by a representation of the safe unsafely of heterosexual hierarchies. God the master and the Christian as the submissive slave subject, the top/bottom relationship of S/M people, is a master sketch of Christianity, done in a moment.” (Althaus 153)
Nao Bustamante. Indigurrito, 1992
Pigment print, 2022.14 x 11 in. Courtesy of the artist.
Humor is a necessary and important component to question these systems of power. This is fundamental in the works of Jesusa Rodríguez, Liliana Felipe, and Marga Gómez. In a video of the work “Indigurrito” (1992), the Chicana Nao Bustamante appears dressed as a dominatrix, indicating to a group of white men to kneel down and bite the burrito she carries in her crotch while asking forgiveness for colonization. “I'm Justin. I'm white. I'm male. I'm sorry,” one of them says in front of the audience, laughing his head off. In “Cunt-Ology” (2003), Elizabeth “MACHA” Marrero dictates a class on the anatomy of women’s genitals. While referring to both the general ignorance of women and their ability to give life, she asks, “When you pray, why do you pray like this?” as she put her palms together in the shape of a mandorla.
Even with its inquisitorial devices, Christian traditions are, without a doubt, built upon the miraculous potential of the body. The bleeding body of Christ, stigmata, incorruptible corpses, and the resurrection itself. In its own way, so is queer theory. It has allowed us to eroticize power in order to denounce its violence and silences, vindicating the role of gender in spiritual renewal. Althaus draws from both liberation theology and queer theory to formulate her own theoretical approach for Latin America. With its fervent commitment to the salvation of the poor, liberation theology quickly found declared adversaries, including at times Pope John Paul II. In his last encyclical Centesimus Annus in 1991, the Pope advocated a liberating theology that was not “centered on the earthly needs of man,” an allusion to the nature of that Dr. Enrique Dussel calls the “material messianism” of this theological current. Such are the contradictions and complexities of the Latin American social fabric, which stubbornly exists in the marginality of institutions and oversight, with the essential demand to emancipate itself from colonial vestiges. From these margins, this exhibition helps us to consider not only the oppressive promises of religious imagery, but—why not—its promise to free us from oppression as well.
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The exhibition will be open to the public from September 16, 2022, through January 8, 2023.
Laura Rivera-Ayala holds a BA in Art History from the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus and earned an MA in Visual Arts Administration at New York University. As an arts professional, she has worked for organizations such as The Hispanic Society Museum & Library, Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, The Mellon Foundation, and independent curatorial projects. Laura is also a fellow of the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures Leadership Institute 2021. Her writing has appeared in the Caribbean Studies Association Journal, Visión Doble (University of Puerto Rico), and The Puerto Rico Review.