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I Do (Not) Feel Like Dancin', 2024 Archiraar Gallery, Brussels, Belgium Photos: Shivadas de Schrijver - "As a gay person, as I would now define myself, I discovered my sexuality relatively late, in my mid- 20s. Although I had been sexually active from an early age, my attraction to men seemed more a father complex than a sexual attraction, due to the lack of male role models in my upbringing. On the one hand, the sudden realisation of my own unacknowledged sexuality in adulthood gave me a very vivid idea of 'context' and how context affects our perceptions. On the other hand, I had clearly missed opportunities to develop awareness of my own sexuality, which probably should have happened in adolescence, through a process of trial and error. As a result, I often feel uncertain about where to place myself in the diversifying scenes of the so-called LGBTQA+ community, although as an individual of this time, I certainly inherit all the relative past of its development, in positive, negative, vivid and subtle ways. Without exception, we are forced to question the standardisation of our beings in this increasingly diversifying society." Our tendency to categorise helps us to understand the world. Kudo sees this nature of ours as a cartography; “an art of map-making”, in order to comprehend our surroundings from specific viewpoints. In ancient and mediaeval times, local myths and religions filled in the uncharted territory of the map by attributing indescribable phenomena that could not be measured at the time to various mythological and religious figures. With the development of science, the accuracy and reproducibility of the "art of map- making" had generally improved, leading to a growing consensus on the existence of universal and standardised principles. This proved to be a short-lived illusion, as further developments in technology enabled us to communicate individual subjectivities, which unfortunately also led to a proliferation of unreflective arrogance on the matter. Now we have reached a point where universal and subjective principles coexist, and the “art of map- making” has become diversified and multipolar. With the new works produced for I Do (Not) Feel Like Dancin’ Kudo intimately traces the evolving nature of his identity as a universal concern for the modern individual, navigating the complexities of cultural legacy and a constant need to redefine oneself. - Link to: Preview |