At the end of his university education in 1973, Miguel Ángel Rojas (1946) presented a set of engravings in which masculine sensuality and homoeroticism predominated; at that time, article 419 of the Colombian Civil Code (1890) penalized homosexuality with imprisonment. However, even though these laws remained in effect until 1980, agitation in favor of LGBT rights grew exponentially and clandestine groups, places and encounters became increasingly numerous. In this context, the works that Rojas presented at the National University in the early seventies were transgressive: Blue Jeans (1973), Pelito (1974), Mouth (1974), exalted sexual freedom and the eroticism of the furtive encounter. Blue Jeans presents a self-portrait without a face that dissolves individual specificity. Young Rojas in jeans and glasses faces the camera again as in Self-portrait with Moonlight (1964), but this time the engraving fragments, conceals and obscures. The arms that cross over his chest in an instinctive act of protection and modesty contrast with the angular sinuosity of the hip, the gestural hint of the head and the tousled hair. In this engraving intimacy is not given by the sexual act or by the complicity of its concealment, but by the candor of one who presents himself strong in his sensuality despite being aware of his own vulnerability, thus, jeans, glasses, the pose, become a most powerful proclamation that embodies a collective identity and resistance.
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