Toward a Homoerotic Historiography
2014
2 series of 10 gold-plated silver figurines
2 x 1.5 cm each
Toward a Homoerotic Historiography
2013
Pencil and watercolor on paper
Series of 10 drawings
22.9 x 30.5 cm each
Carlos Motta (Bogotá, 1978) is a multidisciplinary artist whose work focuses on political history in an effort to create counter-narratives that recognize suppressed stories, communities, and identities.
Toward a Homoerotic Historiography is a series comprising 10 drawings and 20 gold-plated silver figurines. The figurines are miniature replicas of pre-Hispanic sculptures found in the Americas during the years of the conquest, belonging to Indigenous cultures such as the Moche in Peru and the Quimbaya in Colombia. Both the drawings and figurines recount history through the representation of homoerotic acts.
Christian moral judgments in archaeology have long avoided acknowledging the central role of the body, desire, and pleasure in these cultures. This work points to the need to reconsider the application of European epistemological categories to forms of knowledge that fundamentally challenge them.
