Posters for the Museum of the Man of the Northeast (Cartazes para o Museu do Homem do Nordeste)

The Museum of the Man of the Northeast,founded in 1979 by anthropologist Gilberto Freyre, is an institution located in the northern Brazilian city of Recife. Freyre identified the origins of the country’s cultural miscegenation in its indigenous peoples’ encounters with European colonizers and imported African slaves. For his work, Jonathas de Andrade sought local men to pose for (fake) posters advertising the museum. Photographing participants in everyday situations, the artist produced images that resemble research documents. In doing so, he compares Freyre’s institution with the present-day reality of the Northeast. Evoking the sexism present in the museum’s name, he reminds us of the biases of its period of origin, and examines the role that an anthropological approach might play in not only representing and understanding but also actively constructing cultural, personal, and sexual identities.