1980s
Hudinilson Jr. Organised by Marcio Harum

Strongly influenced by the scale of the city, some of the works by Hudinilson Jr. (1957–2013) in Zona de tensão [Tension Zone] are in line with original projects found in the artist’s personal archives, confirming his interest in the use of the billboard not only as a means of mass communication and urban furnishings from the era before the ‘Lei Cidade Limpa’ – a law passed in 2007 prohibiting advertisements on public spaces in the city of São Paulo – but essentially as an installation object.

The collage – displayed here in large dimensions according to the detailed assembly plans found in his studio/home, composes an immense landscape comprised of the skin and hair of a fragmented body: a body that is no longer individual, no longer masculine or feminine, as the result of an exercise which transforms it by exploring the possibilities of a Xerox machine.

As if he were nearsighted, Hudinilson Jr. often tried his hand at simple graphic resources in the production of his work, through obsessively amplified photocopies of A3 and A4 formats. These include the presence of chequered structures, printed on notebook paper or meticulously constructed by his own design and cut-andpaste techniques.

During a lengthy period, the recurring figure of this grid stands out in self-portraits and images of naked men, guiding us to an understanding of the political, social, moral and physical restraints to which homoerotic desire and queer artistic thought were subjected to during the years of military dictatorship and the outbreak of AIDS. – MH