The 32th São Paulo Bienal, which ends in December, features works by 81 artists from 33 countries among which 46 are women. This strong presence of women artists from various continents – including Brazilian artist Barbara Vagner, highlighted by SPW in August – whose works explore the themes of gender and sexuality in an intersectional perspective is very significant at the moment the country passes through: a time marked by the regressive politics of white men. The Guardian has also delivered an analysis on the Bienial during the political turmoil.
From now on, SPW session Art & Sexuality will feature these artists. We begin with Katia Sepúlveda, a Chilean artist who transits between decolonial theory and a transfeminist standpoint, which transcends the female political subject and the white feminist theory, putting into question gender, race, class and subjective practices.
In her show at the 32nd Bienal de São Paulo, with the project “Domestic Device”, developed between 2007 and 2012, the artist seeks through the collage of Playboy magazines to design a micro-story of the first multimedia brothel, which had an important and global media impact, in what she calls the post-brothel period. The idea of the artist was to observe, to deconstruct and then to construct a reading again from a transfeminist perspective.
To read Katia Sepúlveda´s standpoint, click here.