Mixed-Media

A collection of essays, artistic contributions, and two inserted zines, “Cidade Queer, uma Leitora” was developed as part of an 18-month inquiry in São Paulo. Initiated by Lanchonete.org and ArtsEverywhere/Musagetes, the Cidade Queer program was a broad collective inquiry into how can we understand the contemporary city through a queer, intersectional, non-normative lens. The program included a series of encounters, dinners, residencies, and performances, and “Cidade Queer, uma Leitora” reconfigures these moments into a new form, extending the inquiry trans-nationally. The Reader was edited by Júlia Ayerbe and designed by Laura Daviña of Edições Aurora/Publication Studio São Paulo. Order a copy in Portuguese or English online. The following graphic work is a complementary, web-only contribution by one of the authors in the Reader.

Institute 193, the innovative gallery and publisher, has announced the publication of Eric Rhein: Lifelines 

This is the first book from artist Eric Rhein: a unique monograph-memoir spanning three decades of his life and artwork. It features intimate photographs taken between 1989 and 2012—including self-portraits and images of friends and lovers from the period between Rhein’s HIV diagnosis, his near death, and the returning vitality that new medications would afford him. As a personal response to the AIDS crisis, these compelling portraits highlight tenderness and care as life-saving forces. 

[*In the process of making Luv ’til it Hurts (starting with a two-year staged impersonation by its alter-ego, Luv Hurts), I began working with fellow artists, Paula Nishijima and Brad Walrond. Paula reviewed my organization of ideas & content from its 2018-20 archive (a.k.a. the red site) using her ‘swarm’ methodology to understand patterns, and ultimately to propose the project’s next online iteration.]

[*For HIV2020, Juan De La Mar screened his autobiographical film, De Gris a POSITHIVO as part of a panel on 1st person narration along with Mariana Iacono, Jorge Garrido and Erick Cid.]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqDEXTEgBRc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQWYMLOM9ro

“De Gris a POSITHIVO” es un documental autobiográfico sobre mi experiencia y la de mi familia tras ser diagnosticadx VIH+.

Compartiré reflexiones y aprendizajes con Mariana Iacono, Jorge Garrido y Erick Cid sobre las narraciones con voz propia frente a nuestro diagnóstico.

[*The working group that comprises Luv ’til it Hurts–Brad Walrond, Paula Nishijima & Todd Lanier Lester–asked designer / installation author, Jakub Szczęsny to tailor Exquisite Corpse expography to the first 15 artists featuring in a traveling show on HIV and related stigmas. We envision that Exquisite Corpse will change from location to location. Szczęsny’s exhibition spaces (shown below) can be combined to fit the needs of new artists joining the show as well as a range of different host venues.]

When I first put out tent pegs for Luv ’til it Hurts (LUV), I framed it as a two-year period of R&D. The duration of the R&D is the (art) work. This is because I could guarantee to perform ‘research and development’ for a period that I determine duration. I aimed the process at a concept loosely termed ‘philanthropic device’, and then somewhere on this axis where process (asking questions / meeting people while focused on a theme) ‘meets’ identifiable / achievable structure or agglomeration of activities (culmination), I’ve been watching and nudging, teasing out and archiving the ensuing form. And, of course the ending can be the beginning of something else. If something substantive and/or timely comes out of this two-year marathon, I’ll see it. The period is up at end of June, and I’m on a keen outlook for what emerges. It might need new words to describe it, as it shouldn’t be run-of-the-mill. It will be clear soon. Of that, I’m sure. 

[*When the project began, I wrote a piece entitled Why Make an Open Work? where I used some borrowed ‘game storming’ graphics to show the chaos needed within a project before it comes to a point. This logic showed up again when Adham Bakry made LUV’s first design elements (see image). While I don’t imagine that an art exhibition is the only ‘point’ of LUV’s two-year period of understanding, it does seem very compelling as we near the end of its initial two-year period. Codename: Exquisite Corpse! xo Todd]

Game of Swarms will be thus a communication device as well as a register of the artistic research upon how dynamics of networks in nature can be used as a tool to understand new ways of relationality among humans and non-humans—based on the distribution of agency, rather than the centralisation of powers.

***

Collaboration is often considered a value, but not a standard behaviour in Western societies, as much of their thinking is rooted in the individualistic view of the subject—based on autonomy and self-determination. Game of Swarms is an artistic investigation and communication device that offers an alternative to that exceptional framework of the human, emphasising the collaborative behaviour of systems in nature.

Could Be The Ballroom was always our Nuclear option
A rock scrabble bunker become a threshing floor
How we survived our Coldest War

A Mother a Father an entire house full of babies
tucked into mangers woven out of street corner filament
limber enough to parent those of us:

born with and with out parents
with and without islands

begat inside flags with and without stripes
while reading for A-level exams

*Spanish below

EN

LTIH: Do you prefer being called Sergio or El Santo? 

ES: You can call me anything, I like both, Sergio is the name that my parents gave me, and El Santo is the name that I gave to my work, I’ll tell you a little bit more about the story of El Santo.

I believe it is important to start by telling you that when I was very little my mother would scold me, saying in an ironic way: “you are a saint, you never do anything, absolutely nothing.” Hehehe. In our culture saints are important, and I confess that ever since I was a little boy I really liked the idea of saints as characters, beyond the religious, I like to think that there can exist beings with some type of magic power or presence, with a sensibility that can change things, make things, or achieve things. In religion, saints, and even God himself, are like superheroes who give their all for a better world. I think it is very beautiful for one to believe in something, and even to believe in something in order to live. So I got the idea that the saint could be this character that lives in me and that is manifested through art and drawing. Because I need to believe in him, in something.
And I believe that that is how the story of this character, or trademark, started in my art… And my saint really has fulfilled me, because I feel like, and I always tell my students, that I live the best version of Sergio, doing what I like best.