Vernissage May 6, 2021
Exhibition Until June 19, 2021

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Porno chic is the new project developed by Brazilian artist Lyz Parayzo for the Espace_L gallery. The title is derived from the name of a book of erotic stories by Brazilian writer Hilda Hilst. In one of the stories in this trilogy, entitled ‘Le carnet de roses de Lory Lamby’ (Lory Lamby’s Rose Notebook), Lyz found a unique atmosphere that she recreates in this exhibition, awakening in the audience feelings of desire and violence, attraction and self-defence.

The exhibition brings together, in the form of formal and contextual echoes, works from different moments in her career, such as two photographs from the 2015 series Secagem Rápida (her first series to be censored in an art exhibition), a video entitled Papai está descansando from 2016 (created from readings of the book Manifesto Contra-sexual by Spanish philosopher Paul Preciado) and aluminium sculptures from the Bixinhas, Móbiles and PopCretinhos series, in a détournement reference to the productions of the Brazilian neo-concrete movement – Lygia Clark, in particular. These works were created, in part, during an artistic residency in the city of Porto in October and November 2020, but also in the studios of the École Supérieure Beaux-Arts in Paris, with recycled leather finishes from the Paris arts reserve.

By combining different languages such as video installation, serigraphy, sculpture and photography, the artist seeks to renew her critical reading of modernist traditions through the more narrative and biographical prism of gender issues and identity politics.