Through photography, video, and installation, Jonathas de Andrade—who represented Brazil at the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022—revisits popular traditions and vernacular imagery to deconstruct visual archetypes and offer a critical reflection on Brazilian and Latin American identity. Tropical hangover and other stories explores themes such as tropical exoticism, the eroticization of the male body, miscegenation, and social and racial inequalities.
The artistic projects of Jonathas de Andrade are intended to reveal, through performance and play, the power dynamics that underpin human relations and the way we see the world. Focusing on his native Nordeste, the artist's photographs, videos and installations seek to deconstruct stereotypical representations of tropical exoticism, masculinity, cultural mixing and social and racial inequalities. Drawing on his research in anthropology, pedagogy and theatre, the artist explores the collective memory and history of his country, without seeking to establish clear boundaries between fiction and reality.
By eliciting interactions between historically marginalised social groups, who are invited to reclaim control over the expression of their own traditions and imaginary worlds, the works presented in this book call into question—with compassion, militancy and a good dose of humour—the heritage on which our present was built. They also express the idea that the sense of community and the desire to connect with the "other" may be placed at the service of strategies of joyful resistance.
Published on the occasion of the eponymous exhibition at the Jeu de Paume – Tours from June to November 2025.
Based on an almost anthropological process of historical, textual and photographic documentation, the work of Jonathas de Andrade Souza (born 1982 in Maceió, Brazil, lives and works in Recife) comprises conceptual installations that highlight the amnesia affecting some of the social, political, cultural and ideological realities of today's world.
