A record-breaking amount of people showed up to a queer art show after it was shut down by homophobes

26th August 2018

Homophobes had accused the exhibition of promoting blasphemy and paedophilia.

Last year, homophobes successfully campaigned to close down the art show Queermuseu: Queer Tactics Toward Non-Heteronormative Curating after just a month. The exhibition was showing at the Santander Cultural Center in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

After the exhibition was closed down, a crowdfunder was launched to have it reopen at a different venue. The crowdfunder was aiming to get £5,000, but it got so much support that it smashed its goal and raised £195,000. All of the extra money that was raised by the crowdfunder will be donated to educational programmes.

And when the exhibition reopened last weekend, at the private School of Visual Arts of Parque Lage, in Rio de Janeiro, it drew a record-breaking crowd. Speaking to The Art Newspaper, Fabio Szwarcwald, the school’s director said that 5,000 people attended on Saturday, and a further 3,000 on Sunday.

The initial venue of choice was the Museum of Art Rio, however Rio de Janeiro’s mayor, Marcelo Crivella, who is also an evangelical pastor, blocked the move and said that the exhibition belonged at the “bottom of the sea.”

Szwarcwald dismissed Crivella’s comments, saying: “We can’t allow someone like him to decide what we see or not.”

The exhibition showcases 263 different pieces of art by 85 artists. Some of the artists included in the exhibition are José Leonilson, Cândido Portinari and Lygia Clark.

Guadencio Fidelis, the show’s curator praised the opening of the exhibition, and the crowds that were drawn in, saying that it was a “celebration of democracy and resistance.”