The gender of photography: from intersubjetivity to intercorporality in the work of Alair Gomes

Abstract

This essay approaches the photography of Alair Gomes, in a specific cut of his artistic production from the 1960s and 1970s about the Rio neighborhood of Ipanema. Our central question revolves around the homoerotic drive that guides the images of this production. We advocate that the subject / art / space triad makes possible a secure interpretation of the meaning and sense of that photography. We accept the idea that the socio-spatial environment of Ipanema recreated by the art of Alair expresses the displacement of an intersubjectivity to an intercorporality. As the final product of that triad, we have the common world of the artist, in which the Other, the Homo eroticus, forms an intrinsic part.