The inverted sexual Pompei: from Restif de la bretonne to Huw Lemmey, a psycho-sexual manifesto for the city

Pierre-Alexandre Mateos and Charles Teyssou (Cruising Pavilion)

Parisian pornographer Restif de La Bretonne, Situationist co-founder Michèle Bernstein or Pulp writer Huw Lemmey have in common to have explored the metropolis at night as a space for alternative sexual zoning. This lecture will navigate the history of urban modernity through the lens of cruising cultures. Going through different metropolitan figures from the flaneur to the cruiser, urban contexts as well as urban practices, we will question the existence of a sexual and nocturnal “inverted Pompei” to borrow the expression of Guy Debord.

Pierre-Alexandre Mateos (1989) and Charles Teyssou (1988) are a duo of curators and writers. Upcoming and ongoing projects include: Public Programme “Paris Orbital “, Bourse de Commerce, Pinault Foundation, Paris; ongoing archives Arles Terminal City (arlesterminalcity.com), LUMA Foundation, Arles. They recently curated Anathemata at Mostyn (Llandudno, Wales) with works by Antoninn Artaud, Pierre Guyotat and Sarah Kane, GOREGEOUS, by Darja Bajagić at the Confort Moderne (Poitiers) and an exhibition co-curated with Kevin Blinderman dedicated to the dandy figure Jacques de Bascher at the Kunsthalle Bern and Treize (Paris). In collaboration with Dustin Cauchi and Dasha Zaharova they initiated The Opioid Crisis Lookbook in 2020. In collaboration with Rasmus Myrup and Octave Perrault, they initiated the Cruising Pavilion, a series of exhibitions dedicated to the links between sexual dissidence, art and architecture that traveled to Venice (16th Architecture Biennale), New York (Ludlow 38) and Stockholm (ArkDes Museum). They were the editors in chiefs of L’Officiel Art and are regular contributors to Flash Art, Mousse Magazine, Spike, Double Magazine.