Exhibit “La seducción fatal. Imaginarios eróticos del siglo XIX.”
This excellent exhibit of erotic art devotes a section to tango. It is housed by the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes.
You may ask. Why tango here?
Because of the mythology about it’s supoosed beginnings in the brothels.
I find invaluable documents here collected by German physical anthropologist-ethnologist Robert Lehmann-Nitsche during his years of research in the Rio de La Plata region around the turn to the XX century.
You may ask.
What does this have to do with tango?
The book published by Nistche Textos Eroticos del Rio de la Plata shows that vulgar language and “obscene” imagery were part of folkloric songs in Argentina and surrounding countries at the time tango was born. Thus, if the first tangos suggested “obscene” imagery it was not because tango was a vulgar dance – as it has been postulated – but because such vocabulary was common in folkloric artistic manifestations.
Copyright (c) 2015 Beatriz Dujovne.
Tags: Places
Tango-dance is just the tip of an iceberg
Quinteto Ramiro Gallo