In 2017, on the occasion of its 70th anniversary, the Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP) will dedicate its entire program to the theme of sexuality seen through art. The program will include a series of monographic exhibitions of Brazilian and international artists – comprising Toulouse Lautrec, Tunga, Teresinha Soares and Guerrilla Girls – and a major group exhibition, Histórias da sexualidade [Histories of Sexuality] wich will present diverse representations of the subject through different periods and territories — from Pre-Columbian, Asian and African art, to Latin American and European art, from painting and sculpture, to film, video and photography, as well as documents and magazines.

Comprising works from international and Brazilian collections including our own, the project is part of an ongoing series of exhibitions and seminars around the notion of Histórias, which in Portuguese encompasses fiction and non-fiction, historical accounts and personal ones – Histórias da infância [Histories of Childhood] in 2016, Histórias afro-atlânticas [Afro-Atlantic Histories] in 2018, among others. These exhibitions aim to go beyond the traditional modes of art history, placing artworks from different periods and genres into friction and dialogue, developing an approach that challenges boundaries and hierarchies between objects, their origins, categories and typologies.
Histórias da sexualidade is divided into different thematic sections, which include: the nude body, totemism and fertility, religion, gender performance and transexuality, voyeurism, prostitution and the economy of sex, sexual games and plays, language, feminist and queer activisms, among others. The exhibition will include some 250 works from artists such as Edgard Degas, Édouard Manet, Suzanne Valadon, Pablo Picasso, Tarsila do Amaral, Larry Clark, Cildo Meireles, Louise Bourgeois and Ana Mendieta.

A fully illustrated catalogue will accompany the exhibition and a separate volume will be published with key essays by experts in diverse fields such as art history, visual culture, gender studies among others.