Hirosuke Kitamura at 1500 Gallery: Finding Art in Brothels
This sexuality is about meat, blood, pain and pleasure of body.
Japanese-Brazilian artist Kitamura Hirosuke — also known as "Oske” — is known for his haunting photos taken in bregas, inexpensive brothels in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil. Women lay in rumpled beds, body parts take center frame — a foot, a breast or faces are covered in dark lines, cracks splinter up dirty walls, and red lighting creates the sense you are peering through a forbidden keyhole to watch a moment frozen in limbo.
Oske’s latest work, opening at 1500 Gallery, is called Hidra, a Brazilian Portuguese reference to the serpent-like, multi-headed Lernaean Hydra of Greek mythology. For every head cut off, two would grow in its place.
“It is born again so there is not resolution. Brazilians say Bicho de Sete cabeças; it means difficult to resolve,” says Oske. “I saw a good person, but sometimes he had bad things. I saw bad person, but sometimes he has good things. It is not easy to define what is good or bad. It is an animal of seven heads. The people in brothels where I take the photos have good things and bad things. I can see the chaos.”
The exhibition consists of 11 works, including a diptych and a triptych, curated by Brazilian artist Miguel Rio Branco who describes the pieces saying, "sexuality is something transparent, smoky and elusive under our fingertips.”
Sexuality is a major theme and Oske asks viewers not to take it as documentary about prostitution.
“I like eroticism of brothels. It has some classical eroticism, they have nostalgia. Sometimes I go there to drink beer and listen music to meditate,” he says. “I respect the woman in brothels. This sexuality is about meat, blood, pain and pleasure of body. I want to people to think: what is life for you? What is death for you? What is happiness for you? What is sadness for you? What is solitude for you?”
Hidra will be on view in New York until April 28, 2012.
