The list of possible cerebral stimuli is endless. More or less complex, they sustain what is known as the experience of pleasure. In straightforward terms, this experience is a set of activations, reactions, and releases that occur in the brain, attributing to an initial stimulus a sensation of reward. Obviously, the processing of pleasure differs from person to person and is equally influenced by cultural, social, and individual factors. This gift of pleasure, also known as the hedonic experience, owes its name to the figure of Greek mythology Hedone, designated the goddess of pleasure. Daughter of Eros, the god of love, and Psyche, the personification of the soul, Hedone represented the satisfaction of the senses, desires, and human needs.

This project is a tribute to Hedone. It is the first edition of a biennial publication that aims not only to reflect on the theme of pleasure but also on the dialogues it establishes with artistic practice in general. Each edition invites four artists to question, dialogue, collaborate, and confront ideas around this vast theme. What place does the hedonic experience, pleasure, occupy in the world of contemporary art?

With the overall coordination under my responsibility, this edition gained depth thanks to the visions of four artists I deeply admire: Didirella (Diego Bragà), Felix Vong, Susana Rocha, and Tiago Rocha Costa. Each explored a secondary theme, leisure, money, sex, or technology, creating works that challenge normative representations of pleasure and open up space for new ways of thinking about it. The very concept of hedonism has undergone considerable changes over the centuries. We are far removed from the medieval conception of pleasure as sin; today, hedonism mirrors the complexity of the contemporary world. It is from this multiplicity that the artists in this edition develop their works.

Felix Vong played with the idea of a magazine within a book, Leisure Centre. In this project, he sought to explore what we do with our free time and what that reveals about us. Tiago Rocha Costa, in Tropical Vanitas, presents an atlas that investigates the relationship between pleasure, exoticism, and curiosity. Money, the central theme, appears associated with a new interpretation of animal nature as an exotic commodity. Didirella returns to Playboy in 1984, correcting the story of Roberta Close, the first Brazilian trans muse, in a necessary gesture to reposition the word “travesti” as a place of power and desire. Susana Rocha, in Leaking Bodies, explores the ambiguity of pleasure and shows how technology, functioning as both archive and trigger of memories, makes us revisit experiences that both comfort and wound.