Dora García
Amor Rojo

As part of our commitment to developing and accompanying projects over time and across chapters, we present Amor Rojo (Red Love). This installment marks the culmination of Dora García’s trilogy of films about the complicated yet ongoing legacy of Alexandra Kollontai, which we began last winter with the screening of the first two films as part of the exhibition Revolution, fulfill your promise!.

Can love also become a weapon? In Amor Rojo, Dora García uses the historical figure of Alexandra Kollontai (1872-1952), a Marxist theorist and Soviet revolutionary, radical feminist, and sex activist, as a guide to walk the labyrinth of female freedom and sexual emancipation.

In the first film, Love with Obstacles (2020), Kollontai’s personal archive became the starting point for filmic reflections that continued in If I Could Wish for Something (2021), which documented the recent surge in feminist demonstrations across Mexico. For this third film, Dora García collaborated with three young Mexican researchers (Olga Rodríguez, Carla Lamoyi, Paloma Contreras Lomas) and Mexican historian and author Rina Ortiz.

Amor Rojo borrows its title from Kollontai’s best-known work of fiction and presents a complex narrative crossing continents and an entire century. Geographically, the project moves between Moscow, Kollontai’s revolutionary birthplace and site of her official archives, and Mexico City, where she was Soviet ambassador from 1926-27 (this coincided with the aftermath of the Mexican revolution in which the women’s movement played a pivotal role). Juxtaposing the 1920s with today, Amor Rojo probes a historical throughline between the revolutionary demands of early 20th century Marxist feminism and today’s trans-led feminist struggle that intersects with the call to dismantle colonial power structures.

Amor Rojo is part of Rituals of Speaking, a film-led series that explores how artists represent the voices of others through collective storytelling. Revolution, fulfill your promise!, the first chapter of Dora García’s project on the legacy of Kollontai, is part of First Person, Third Person, Same Person, Amant’s inaugural film-based series, charting artistic methods of giving historical figures a voice in the present.

Images: Amor Rojo (video stills), 2022. Courtesy of Dora García.

Amor Rojo was born from the feeling of wonder at the latest feminist demonstrations across Latin America, and specifically in Mexico, a country that has been marked by gender violence. The performative qualities of these demonstrations, the way they appropriate and re-signify public space, and re-write official history (traditionally dominated by male, white figures) is at the center of this research project. Today’s feminist and trans-feminist fights across Latin America seem to have lost any remaining trust in the state, demanding a complete overturning of established values regarding family, reproductive rights, social structure, and economic and ecological policies. In doing so, they echo the disappointment of Kollontai’s generation, bringing renewed hope to the broken promises of a revolution started almost a century ago.
Series
Rituals of Speaking
Rituals of Speaking is a film-led series that explores how artists represent the voices of others through collective storytelling.
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Study Line
Love Expanded Love Extended
Our Study Lines are the connective tissue between our events, collaborations with artists, publications, and our conversations with our community. We pursue open-ended insights that challenge understandings of art, art-making, and art’s impact in the world at large. We currently focus on Hearing Voices and Love Expanded Love Extended.
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