"Póngase las plumas" - A decolonialidade no sistema das artes visuais contemporâneas pelas perspectivas de gênero e corpos dissidentes: complexidades e contradições entre Brasil, Colômbia e Peru

Abstract

The concept of decoloniality has frequently been mobilized by the contemporary visual arts system. The term, proposed by the Modernity/Coloniality Group, is mainly used to highlight curatorial practices that include dissident artists—Indigenous, black, queer, and marginalized individuals. However, fieldwork conducted across Brazil, Colombia, and Peru indicated that "decoloniality" has been appropriated by the arts field, becoming a native term within artistic institutions. The capitalization of the concept by the art market has resulted in an identity-based approach that merely refers to the presence of non-hegemonic artists' work, without the structural transformations that decoloniality should entail. Consequently, art agents accuse the system of instrumentalizing their identities, which were previously marginalized, for the benefit of the art system. In light of this issue, the research investigated the art circuit in these three countries through interviews with women artists, curators, and gallerists (cis and transgender), non-binary individuals, and transgender men. Considering the art system as a porous system, formed by a network of power relations between agents, institutions, and artworks, the study sought to highlight the complexities and contradictions inherent in this field from the perspective of gender and dissident bodies. The territorial connection marked by the tri-border region between Brazil, Colombia, and Peru also underscores the hegemonic perspective of the Global North on their artistic productions. Power hierarchies are replicated in a colonial model within the art institutions of these three countries. The conflicts and disputes over who decides what is art, who sells art, and who consumes art reveal that the decolonial perspective is more aligned with discourse than practice in the art circuit. The advancement of decoloniality, driven by social pressure for increased representation of minority groups in positions of power, alongside high-impact academic production on decoloniality and market demand, has generated the search for dissident identities that the arts system of the Global South is experiencing today. The limitations imposed on artists' productions, marked by otherness from a hegemonic perspective, expose the need for new strategies to truly decolonize the art system. The essentialization of identities and the reductionist reading of how these bodies and productions are perceived by the art system indicate a simplistic understanding of complex experiences. It is therefore necessary for art agents to question and resist, aiming for historical reparation where productions are contextualized, and the "universal" subject is challenged. This would decentralize the rigidity imposed on dissident identities, allowing for the expansion of the imagination surrounding their bodies and experiences.