curated by Michele Bertolino, Bernardo Follini, Giulia Gregnanin, Sebastiano Pala, L’Ano Solare, 2022

L’Ano Solare. A year-long programme on sex and self-display is the outcome of a research on sexuality, performativity, and self-representation in the field of visual and performing arts. The title of the publication homages the book of the same name by Georges Bataille (The Solar Anus), in which the concept of anality—as a political device able to challenge patriarchy and heteronormativity—is the sun of a situated understanding and a radical epistemology.

The volume condenses the reflections articulated in L’Ano Solare. A year-long programme on sex and self-display, a programme structured in seven episodes and composed by exhibitions, performances, screenings, and lectures. The programme featured thirty-three authors and took place between 2019 and 2021 at Il Colorificio in Milan, at Teatrino Palazzo Grassi in Venice and at Casa Testori in Novate Milanese.

The book L’Ano Solare is a collective body, composed by essays, letters, erotic stories, confessions, poems, and visual archives by the contributors Lorenzo Bernini, Natalia Cabezas, Giulia Crispiani, Caterina De Nicola, Beatrice Favaretto, Giovanna Maina, Jacopo Miliani, Mariacarla Molè, Giorgia Ohanesian Nardin, Linda Porn Davis, Luca Scarlini, The School of the End of Time, Giovanni Testori, Tomboys don’t cry and Francesco Tola.

The backbone of the book consists in a dense essay by Il Colorificio that introduces, contextualizes and expands each contribution featured in the book. The text traces a fictional story intersecting local mythologies with personal anecdotes, political experiences, and contemporary artistic practices: from the disciplinary power of the catholic devotional device of the Sacred Mounts to the performative potential of language; from the practices of self-defence and terrorism in relation to the body and sexuality (stemming from Italian armed struggle to postporn) to the urgent need to regain possession of the public space.