De haut en bas : A New Sentimental Journey, 1983

24 June – 30 August 2009 A New Sentimental Journey is the title of the philosophical text, conceived in the form of a diary, that Alair Gomes wrote in English after visiting Europe in 1983. More than 700 photos illustrate the journey. The photos speak both of Gomes’ intimate knowledge of classical art andof his transcendental vision of the divine, the basis for which resides in Eros -the young male’s body, God’s supreme creation. The male’s body is an idée fixe pervading the author’s subject matter - his aesthetic, religion and ethos. Here the eroticisation of the male body is conceptually identical to the famous series of photos of young men on the beach in Rio de Janeiro, exhibited at the Fondation Cartier in 1992. The curator of the exhibition, the artist and photographer Miguel do Rio Branco, selecting from the whole collection, has created a coherent series of images. Here exhibited to the public for the first time, this series of photos shows, in perfect accordance with the overall production, a new facet of the art of Alair Gomes, who died in 1992.