Rialto6

Curated by Gabriel Abrantes

Lizards, hens, a frieze of mice, a perverted goat, a chameleon, and deadbeat dads. This is an artist’s show, a tribute to ways of seeing and working. Ambiguity is central. Six radical women (Ana Jotta, Paula Rego, Inês Raposo, Carla Dias, Meriem Bennani, and Orian Barki) encircle Conner O’Malley’s pathetic het cis bros. The libidinal, anthropomorphic, confrontational bestiaries surround his disjointed portraits of masculinity in crisis. His is the delirium of a debauched anxiety for connection, in an age where the basement-dwelling, gaming-addicted loser basks in the delusion that his hustles will deliver the American Dream through influencing, viral videos, crypto investments, and sliding into DMs. Theirs is the hallucination of the unbridled animal energy of corrupted fairy tales, traumatic childhoods, where dogs knip at the devil’s testicles and rats molest each other, in a macabre dance of liberatory walpurgian nachts.

Marie-Therese Bruglacher