FELICITAS
Issue 1
Artist Volumes Series
Camilo Godoy
New Poetics Publishing
English
Edited by Cristina Velásquez and Nechama Winston
Softcover
Edition of 300
16 pages
170 x 230 mm
2023
ISSN 29815320
As an artist and educator, Camilo Godoy utilizes a multidisciplinary practice with photography and performance to explore themes of self-love, longing, and desire. Born in Bogotá and based in New York, the artist plumbs the hidden histories of human physical desire, undermining entrenched social codes both past and present, while making work rooted in simple gestures. His work engages with the intersection of history, race, gender, and sexuality and is informed by Queer, Latinx, Feminist, and Black perspectives. FELICITAS incorporates work from three projects: HIC HABITAT FELICITAS, AMIGXS, and What did they actually see?.
Godoy states that he: “Creates photographs that confront, challenge, and transform racial, gender, sexual, and beauty norms…I insist on depicting love, lust, and friendship as a way of life to imagine different ways of being.” We see this in the images from HIC HABITAT FELICITAS, a Latin phrase which translates to “Here dwells happiness,” referencing an Ancient Roman relief, where Godoy performs in front of the camera with red fabric a variation of dances gestures and sexual acts. In AMIGXS, the gender-inclusive word for “friends” in Spanish, Godoy depicts friends and lovers engaged in acts of love and lust, and originally included these images in an offset printed zine that the artist self-published annually. “What did they actually see?” consists of ten large scale black and white photographs of Godoy performing nude and in the dark. The project was inspired by a series of colonial texts that the artist encountered at the NYPL for the Performing Arts from the 17th to 19th century by European missionaries and explorers describing the dance practices of non-European people near present day Colombia.
Jordan Mason Mayfield writes in “An archive of queer brown flesh”: “My body holds an archive of your touch, / Not like those that seek to erase our existence, / but one of care, and dance, / and the / friction / Between my body and yours. … What does a language of our bodies look like? / One that exists beyond colonial tongues / Surely there is a syntax to each bump and hair across / Your skin. / I will study your arms, legs, and swaying hips dearly, / until my hands remember the words encoded / Across your body… Let brown flesh conjure visions of / Beings enmeshed with light. / Movement gives way to / Emancipatory Splendor, / Queer time expands one moment to / An Eternity.”
(Source: https://www.newpoeticsoflabor.com/artist-volumes/p/camilo-godoy)
About the Artist
Camilo Godoy is an artist born in Bogotá and based in New York. Godoy’s multidisciplinary projects are concerned with politics, history, and memory. He has participated in several residencies including at New Museum, International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP), SOLARIS, Movement Research, coleção moraes-barbosa, New Dance Alliance, and Recess. Godoy’s work has been exhibited in New York at the Brooklyn Museum, Leslie-Lohman Museum, CUE, OCDChinatown, PROXYCO Gallery; Museo de Arte Moderno, Bogotá; Moody Center, Houston; UNSW Galleries, Sydney; Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Quito; among others. He has performed at Danspace Project, Movement Research at the Judson Church, New Museum; Toronto Biennial; and Künstlerhaus Mousonturm.
https://camilogodoy.com
(Source: https://camilogodoy.com/contact)
About the Publisher
New Poetics Publishing is an independent publishing house based between Bogotá and New York, founded by artists Nechama Winston and Cristina Velásquez. New Poetics Publishing is part of New Poetics of Labor, a research platform founded in 2017. New Poetics Publishing collaborates with emerging artists on contemporary and experimental approaches to photography in the book form. We disseminate diverse visual perspectives, narratives and aesthetics, seeking to feature underrepresented voices in the photographic discourse. Through photography we contribute to alternative modes of learning and thinking. New Poetics Publishing prioritizes producing high quality affordable books. Our approach to publishing allows us to work in close collaboration with artists from start to finish, with all design and editing done in-house. Production is done locally and by close friends.
https://www.newpoeticsoflabor.com
(Source: https://www.newpoeticsoflabor.com/about)
