Made in Brazil – Interview with Brazilian artist, Francisco Hurtz.
Could we start with some background information about you? How and when did you get into the creative world?
I draw and paint with the same technical ability since I was a teenager. However, I consider my career to begin when I started to think about the image itself, I create images as a temporal manifestation, a reflection of what I live today, an active witness with reflections on my reality. I started producing images thinking about Contemporary Art at the end of 2009, and since then I have not stopped producing art and doing exhibitions.
What or Who would you say has inspired you to start doing art?
I have no idea how this started. I have always wanted to be an artist, but I had no idea about how to start doing art. I had a very troubled youth beginning, had to leave the college of architecture and I was in a big lack of money. I was kind of depressed that time and my only joy was when I was drunk with friends. I expent my early 20’s in the underground scene of São Paulo. It was very intense. Years of crazy rock parties, drugs, good music and nightclubs where I met many people who worked with art. Those people introduced me to art in another way, as a career.
What ’creative’ means to you?
Roland Barthes – A morte do Autor.
How do you find ideas for new works?
When I look at banal images on Instagram or when I photograph my naked friends.
When you look at your own work, what goes on in your mind?
I have a great artistic sense and a huge artistic repertoire. I’m an art geek. All work carried out and published went through a reflection on the relevance of that image to the contemporary art context and social context as well. I look at these almost 10 years of production and I think: OBSESSIVE BITCH.
Do you consider yourself more naughty or nice?
I’m SOCIALIST.
What you are hoping to achieve through your works?
The recognition and legitimation of Brazilian Queer art worldwide.
Art is subjective. For you, what’s the thin line between art and porn?
There is no line between art and pornography. My work is Post Pornography. Political Pornography. Anarchist images of naked men.
Ever gotten into any trouble with your work?
I have an immense difficulty in exposing my works in Brazilian museums. There is a tacit agreement in Brazil where gays can be artists but they can not talk about their life, their sex, their affection, their subjectivity within the museums. My work has a great acceptance among curators and art critics but it does not reach the public for Latin American moralism.
Why is good to be an artist? And what is the worst thing in it?
I hate being an artist but I’m no good in anything else to get another job.
What is the biggest challenge you see in the ’gay scene’ today?
I live in the most LGBT killing country in the world. A Queer person is murdered every 26 hours in Brazil. Brazil is a world champion in the murder of transvestites, their life expectancy is 36 years here. Brazil systematically exterminates black youth from the outskirts of cities. There is a political coup in progress in Brazil that makes Fascism real against lesbians, gays, transvestites and transsexuals and also against blacks, natives, poors and leftist people in general. There is an ongoing coup against democracy in Brazil. The biggest challenge is to make people understand Queer as a form of political resistance. Sexual disobedience is civil disobedience.
Your next to do today is… ?
R u l e t h e w o r l d .
Find more: @franciscohurtz