Gay Ethos and Countercultural in Argentina's Artistic Field during the Transition to Democracy

This paper analyzes the cultural changes in Argentina during its transition to  democracy (1983-1993) cross referenced with the history of homosexuality. The international level provides a background (e.g., Stonewall), but the shift from totalitarianism to democracy ‘shaped these changes in a distinct way. This research is based on different sources: deep interviews, análisis de obras del período y publicaciones del activismo. I examine how the prior homosexual experience and their subsequent collective coming out in the 90s (called gay experience) promoted the construction of spaces of autonomy and artists how took over esthetic ruptures.

I propose exploring relationships and transferences between homosexuality and the counterculture from a sociological perspective, beyond aspects related to LGBT politics, like: 1. A type of sociability derived from the homosexual “insular cosmos” which existed until approximately the mid-90s; 2. A selective homoerotic tradition, encouraged by national and international cultural models, in the face of the prevailing intellectual canon; 3. A morality constituted around the authority of the group itself. These dimensions favored a non-instrumental relationship with the lettered culture which was interwoven emotionally with personal life and which allowed actors with no significant cultural inheritance to become involved with the high culture practices of heterodox social actors.