Toros: the eroticism of bullfighting in the photographs of Alair Gomes

Abstract

On the extensive Alair Gomes’s (1921-1992) collection, maintained by the National Library in Rio de Janeiro there is a group of photographs taken during his travels throughout Europe. The Toros series contains 80 photos that recorded bullfighting. It is a subject less known of Gomes’s work, since the public is more used to the photographs of Rio’s beaches. In Toros, the photographer seeks to capture the confrontation between man and animal, the imminent danger of death. Those photos mark the bullfighter’s body strain, the flexible shapes and curves they apply to escape bull attacks. The photographs also highlight the theatricality of the event and, moreover, demonstrate Gomes’s explicit interest in masculine forms. Comparing the existing iconography on the theme: works by Goya, Picasso and Dali, among others, this text will present these moments captured by Gomes, where it is clear that bullfighting, a manifestation full of aesthetic elements, served as a propitious ground for Alair Gomes to dedicate his fascination with the male body.