Artists in Brazil fear an increase in censorship and intimidation following Jair Bolsonaro’s recent victory in the presidential elections, writes Oliver Basciano.
Wagner Schwartz received the first death threat two days after lying naked on the floor of a museum in São Paulo. It was October 2017 and the Brazilian artist had invited members of his audience, which included children, to adjust his body: move a limb, roll him over, that kind of thing. This was for a dance piece called La Bête, a work he had already staged many times at home and abroad. So it was a shock to suddenly find himself the target of an increasingly emboldened network of rightwing and evangelical Christian groups.
During La Bête, a four-year-old girl, encouraged by her mother, lifted Schwartz’s hand and then his foot, while another slightly older girl touched his head. These moments were caught on video and uploaded to Facebook. “The creators of this page,” says Schwartz, “put a caption on the video saying the museum incited paedophilia and that I was a paedophile. From this moment on, people who did not know me or the work decided La Bête was a threat.”
Evangelical activists and members of the Movimento Brasil Livre, a group that claims to be libertarian, gathered outside the venue, the Museum of Modern Art (MAM), while 100,000 people signed a petition denouncing the work. One popular meme juxtaposed a picture of Schwartz with three bullets and the caption: “Paedophilia has a cure.”... Keep reading on The Guardian
Wagner Schwartz received the first death threat two days after lying naked on the floor of a museum in São Paulo. It was October 2017 and the Brazilian artist had invited members of his audience, which included children, to adjust his body: move a limb, roll him over, that kind of thing. This was for a dance piece called La Bête, a work he had already staged many times at home and abroad. So it was a shock to suddenly find himself the target of an increasingly emboldened network of rightwing and evangelical Christian groups.
During La Bête, a four-year-old girl, encouraged by her mother, lifted Schwartz’s hand and then his foot, while another slightly older girl touched his head. These moments were caught on video and uploaded to Facebook. “The creators of this page,” says Schwartz, “put a caption on the video saying the museum incited paedophilia and that I was a paedophile. From this moment on, people who did not know me or the work decided La Bête was a threat.”
Evangelical activists and members of the Movimento Brasil Livre, a group that claims to be libertarian, gathered outside the venue, the Museum of Modern Art (MAM), while 100,000 people signed a petition denouncing the work. One popular meme juxtaposed a picture of Schwartz with three bullets and the caption: “Paedophilia has a cure.”... Keep reading on The Guardian