Sideguise: revindication through the dirty

The independent magazine Sideguise, which compiles works by different young artists, presents its new issue with a central idea: dirty. We attended its presentation at Habitación Número and talked to its director Jorge Ariza.

The Dirty Issue is the second issue of the magazine and, according to its creator and director Jorge Ariza, more personal and provocative. Jorge believes that a work of art without vindication is meaningless; there is already a lot of aesthetic art, it is time to give it content. The presentation at Habitación Número also followed this line; with the magazines wrapped in black plastic, they created a boat that evoked cocaine trafficking in northern Spain. In this way, they wanted to transmit the traffic of art, in Jorge’s words: “selling oneself to the devil”.

Sideguise was born as an alternative to the normality and restriction of editorial publications, consumer-oriented fashion and sterile and banal art. The publication aims to be a kind of collector’s item that encourages reflection and dialogue, as opposed to the classic fashion magazine whose content is reduced to seasonal trends.

Jorge tells us that the magazine is a work between friends and that they do it when they have time. Although at the end of the day it is not a stable job from which they can make a profit, the satisfaction of seeing something of their own compensates them. Of course, financing without profit is difficult, and for this reason they made a crowdfunding offering in exchange an advertisement in the magazine. They also placed advertisements in the form of posters in the streets of Madrid days before the presentation.

The posters advertised things like pee drink or semen cream, accompanied by an explicit photograph. According to Jorge, the provocation of the posters was, above all, childish and fun, a kind of “poop, ass, fart and pee”. Although they did not encounter any incident, he tells us that many of them have been cut out in the most explicit areas, as if trying to censor it.

The idea of dirty came to Ismael Santos and Jorge was the one who contacted the artists who seemed most interesting to do what they wanted. They wanted to vindicate from the dirty; especially in this year of pandemic in which we have been required to make a greater effort in cleanliness. In the magazine the explicit also prevails, without any kind of censorship, but with a discourse behind it. They do not want to stay with the typical pornographic scene that sells and gives morbidity.

Thus, we can find works like that of Robert Andy Coombs (@robertandycoombs2), a guy from Miami who talks about what it’s like to be disabled and have sex. We also came across an interview with singer Yurena, who for Jorge is the clear example of a musical icon reviled by society both for her life and her lyrics; but who still ended up transcending the music that was being made at the time.

Sideguise: The Dirty Issue is divided into several parts ranging from the least explicit images to the most. These divisions are distinguished by the color of the pages, starting with white and ending in black, although that does not mean that the content is less provocative; on the white pages the provocation is found in the text.

Both Jorge and the team are eager to continue working on the magazine, but they also think that the project will have to find ways to sustain itself. Who knows, maybe it will be a main job in the future. To do so, things have to change, among them the valuation we give to fashion and its designers. But, undoubtedly, this kind of young projects are a light on the way.

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For more information, visit the Sideguise website.