Exhibition
Masculinities: Liberation through Photography
Sunil Gupta, Untitled 22. From the series Christopher Street, 1976 © Sunil Gupta & VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2019, Courtesy: the artist & Hales Gallery
The exhibition Masculinities: Liberation through Photography can be discovered online here. The comprehensive show at the Gropius Bau featured works by Laurie Anderson, Richard Avedon, Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Isaac Julien, Annette Messager and Wolfgang Tillmans and explored the ways in which masculinity is experienced, performed and socially constructed from the 1960s to the present day.
At a time when ideas around masculinity are undergoing a global crisis and concepts such as “toxic” and “fragile” masculinity are shaping social discourse, over 300 works by 50 international artists such as Laurie Anderson, Richard Avedon, Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Peter Hujar, Isaac Julien, Annette Messager, Catherine Opie and Wolfgang Tillmans offered a panorama of filmic and photographic explorations of masculinity rife with contradictions and complexity. Touching on themes of patriarchy, power, queer identity, race, class, sexuality, hypermasculine stereotypes as well as female perceptions of men, the works presented masculinity as an unfixed, performative identity.
Curated by Alona Pardo, Barbican Centre
Organised by Barbican Centre, LondonAs part of EMOP Berlin - European Month of Photography 2020
Kindly supported by FreifrauManufaktur
Partners: Wall, Bouvet
Media partners: Monopol, KubaParis, rbbKultur, Inforadio, MousseMagazine