Teresarius
presents:
Barcelona Art Gay
Mixing photography, painting, sculpture, comics & video.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009 Opening

BAG'09 [BarcelonaArtGay] is a cultural event of gay subject, created by Sergi Ortín, which is born this 2009 aiming for a maximum diffusion and its annual repetition. Everything turns about an art exhibition in the Espai Cultural Francolí, headquarters teresarius: promotors d’art (www.teresarius.com), following its multidisciplinar character together with an offer following varied cultural exprint and upward, from the 7th to the 29th of May. It includes painting, photography, sculpture, comic and video - installation of well-known artists and new values, and is accompanied of interesting related parallel activities during May.

Artists: Sergio Cattivelli, Roberto Delgado, Violeta Gomez, Antonio J., Invernot, Sebas Martín, David Mirás, Sandra Mondon, Elena Montull, Nazario, Ocaña, Olgaz, Daniel Torrent, Sandra Turnbull, and MR. WOOLMAN.

Parallel activities:

• 'Kink: The freedom of the selfedition'. Conference by of PacoyManolo. Thursday 14th, 19h.
• 'Remembering Robert Mapplethorpe'. Workshop of photography with model. Saturday 16th, 10-14h.
• 'Mythology and Art: the secrets of Dionise'. Workshop of tasting of wines. Thursday 21, 19.30 h.
• 'Gaycelona: from the persecution to the integration'. Route for the history and culture of the
  Gay Barcelona. Friday 22nd and Saturday 23rd of May to the 18h.
• Workshops Bondage in charge of Neo-Cortex BDSM.
• Closure: Thursday 28th of May from 7.30pm. Wine by Louis de Vernier. Performance by Thomas Reydellet and Presentation of collection of leather by ATELIERFER.

BAG’09 sights to the contemporary art from the re-assertion of an identity LGTB (lesbian, gay, transsexual and bisexual). The elaboration of esthetic proposals that inquire in the universe that forms the plural and different identity built by this group to fight the discrimination, the prejudice and the estigmatización accessing to their visibility with the intention of creating interesting subjects of analysis and debate in our society. The ‘Gay Art’ nowadays it is very much present in the international artistic panorama, it is already in magazines of trends, fashion and design, in the most in galleries of London, New York or Tokyo or in Art Fairs like Arco, Basel, Frieze or Miami.

Homoerotic art is usually the one created for and for the homosexual community. The subjects of this type of art go from the sensuality of the naked one up to the relationships psico-affective and erotic among people of the same sex. This demonstration is generally explicit, but not pornographic, although it is difficult to draw an unmistakable border among erotism and pornography, since there will always be different interpretations and criteria; however when to talk of homoerotism we base in the emotional part associated with the erotism, which the sexual desire looks for waking up and at the same time converts an explicit description in a little romantic, many times deepening more in the feelings than in the details specific to the act.

The homosexuality has been present in all the art history. This artistic gender has one of its bases in the ancestral cultures; these cultures dedicated part of their artistic expressions to the phallic cult, as developer of the fertility, but also as symbol of the virility and of the transmission of the force among the warriors of a clan or tribe. It does not have to be forgotten that other cultures, besides the occidental one, also have clear examples of this subject, from the Indian to the Japanese.

The Greek art contains explicit references to this type of images with men, generally older, that they transmit its wisdom and its physical power to their students. In the Roman art the different representations of Zeus can stand out kidnapping and raping the beautiful Trojan prince Ganímides. In the medieval period we have martyrs as San Sebastian, penetrated by arrows (phallic symbols) with expressions of pain and pleasure at the same time. In the Renaissance painters as Botticelli or Leonardo da Vinci and in the Baroque with Caravaggio usually present us secret codes in works of art that only certain people understand.

Some artists of the 20th century and 21st to stand out for their contribution are Paul Cadmus, Gilbert & George, Tom of Finland, David Hockney, Will McBride, Robert Mapplethorpe, Pierre et Gilles. As example of feminine homoerotism we can quote Frida Kahlo, Gustav Klimt and Gustave Courbet.

Barcelona Art Gay
Barcelona Art Gay Website (In Spanish)

Teresarius Website