Artist Volumes Series, Issue 1, Fall 2023
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.”
ISSN: 2981-5320
All rights reserved.
© Camilo Godoy
Images are courtesy of the artist.
All works by Camilo Godoy.
Text by Jordan Mason Mayfield and Camilo Godoy.
Photo editor: Cristina Velásquez
Text editor: Nechama Winston
Design & Art Direction: Cristina Velásquez
Typesetting: Raleway
Printed in Medellin, Colombia by Taller Artes & Letras.
Edited in Colombia.
First edition / 300 copies
October 2023
** Please note the shipping / handling fee is from within the US. To process international shipments outside the US, please reach out to newpoeticsoflabor@gmail.com. **
Artist Volumes Series, Issue 1, Fall 2023
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.”
ISSN: 2981-5320
All rights reserved.
© Camilo Godoy
Images are courtesy of the artist.
All works by Camilo Godoy.
Text by Jordan Mason Mayfield and Camilo Godoy.
Photo editor: Cristina Velásquez
Text editor: Nechama Winston
Design & Art Direction: Cristina Velásquez
Typesetting: Raleway
Printed in Medellin, Colombia by Taller Artes & Letras.
Edited in Colombia.
First edition / 300 copies
October 2023
** Please note the shipping / handling fee is from within the US. To process international shipments outside the US, please reach out to newpoeticsoflabor@gmail.com. **
