Art Latinou is a digital art platform that showcases Latin American talent, it has its homebase in Mexico City. Whilst in CDMX I intended a physical visit but a frantic schedule of museums, mezcal and men precluded me from doing so. Art Latinou’s most recent online exhibition ran until mid-August and was entitled Vacaciones en Sodoma. I settled for the virtual showroom finding it a fitting reflection of the year and a half gone by; the show was accessible on Artsy and the digital experience was awkward, but the works curated sexy and whimsical.
“Como la flor” Fabián Cháirez, México, Pintura , 2021 Óleo / tela 30 x 20 cm Image taken from Art Latinou:
Vacaciones en Sodoma is a colourful escape into a gay dreamscape, a seedy fairytale; a fairytale that one day found itself getting fucked in the Zona Rosa. True to the canon of queer creative expression the exhibition was astral-projection into total freedom articulated through colour and cross-dress and glamour and sex. What we got were a vibrant fantasia of images: a rose plucked from an erect penis in Cinderella blue skies, a mustacheod queen with a tiara and a pistol faggot (maricon) scrawled across their chest, a gimp Medusa pleasured by the snakes of her own head, a queen in Princess Jasmine drags.
Lady Tepito. De la serie “Retratos de una vida Divina” Eriko Stark, México,2016, Fotografía digital 70 x 50 cm Image taken from Art Latinou
The exhibition heavily features the work of Fabian Chairez who plays with homosexuality and sexual taboo in dreamy oil and sculpture. Gritty photographs from M0’ and Eriko Stark cut Chairez's soft oils and clay with dirty nightlife scenes. There are various quotations floating around the walls of the exhibition, a voice of God talking from nowhere in particular. One wall sees stanzas from the lusty Cerruda poem No Decia Palabras (He didn’t say words) drift like clouds across the space.
Vacaciones en Sodoma was well worth the visit, especially given it was only clicks away. It may still be accessible online. If so, go there for erotic, hallucinatory, dream-like story. Be both inspired and disturbed by the panicked demands for MORE LIFE that sit just under the rainbow.