Rio de Janeiro, 1964 and Lucerne, 1955. Live in Rio de Janeiro

Maurício Dias and Walter Riedweg’s installations are largely produced in dialogue with minorities shunted to the fringes of society. Since 2004, the duo has been developing projects that explore the representation of alterity in history, resulting in such works as Amparo [Support] (2013), Funk Staden (2007) and Throw (2004).

At Frestas, Dias & Riedweg present Realize suas fantasias [Fulfill Your Fantasies], a work that references the ad “Fulfill your sexual fantasies. Photo + telephone”, which Charles Hovland ran for over twenty years in New York newspapers. Through this ad, the photographer offered to take black and white fantasy photos registering all the secret desires of his clients—men, women and transexuals. In parallel, Hovland started doing color photos of male nudes for magazines. In over two decades, he amassed an archive of 3,000 black-and-white negatives, 450 thousand slides and 300 polaroids.

The artists have known Charles Hovland since the early 90s, and, in this installation commissioned by Frestas, they explore the potentialities and particularities of the visual narratives contained in the photographer’s archive, especially in relation to his subjective, pulsating record of sexuality and the urban imaginary in New York during the 70s and 80s. The result is a non-hierarchical narrative of Hovland’s archives, including pictures from his collections and his studio, scenes from the city’s underground life and portraits of the photographer himself, as well as his recent interviews with the duo.

[F.J.]

Obra

Waiting for my Model [Esperando meu modelo], 2017
videoinstalação

A partir do acervo de Charles Hovland
Fotografia: Paul Carpenter, Dias & Riedweg e Charles Hovland
Scans de fotografia analógica e tratamento de imagem: Anna Luiza Braga
Captação de audio: Paul Carpenter
Assistência: Juliana Franklin e Anna Luiza Braga
Transcrição: Anna Luiza Braga
Agradecimentos: Charles Hovland, Marcello Dantas, Margery Pearlmuter, Carl Friedrich, Anna Luiza Braga, Juliana Franklin, Karen Haley, Eduardo Brandão, Daniela Labra, Angela Madalegna, Paula Marujo, Madai Produções, Galeria Vermelho, Sesc São Paulo