Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
1969, Rio de Janeiro, lives and works in Paris and Rio
Impassive, beautiful, and damaged, Andre Niemeyer's mug shot type paintings of young men situates a province of ambiguity in his subjects.
The rendering of the masculine icon as both androgynous and vulnerable engages a politics of sexuality, that betrays the trap of persona construction. The expressionless subject evokes a multivalent condition that manifests as a mixture of celebration and critique.
Niemeyer uses desire to beguile judgement and in so doing leaves us with questions. Are they victims of abuse or victims of their own narcissistic invincibility?
Heroic yet delicate, the duality reveals the ineluctable vulnerability of youth and the fragility of romanticized masculinity. The homoerotic element in the presentation of boys as innocence lost is inextricably linked to the problem of identity.
Showing the boys as a dissimilar yet homogenous group Niemeyer uses the idea of the collective identity as a vehicle to transmit the dilemma of the individual, caught inside and outside of society. The almost arrogant passport-photo pathos in each of the faces deliberately conceals an individual story and belies the fact that each is alone.