As a subject for art, the naked body is both political and emotional. Seeing what is usually covered and hidden, stripped away and revealed, immediately challenges modern day viewers to engage with their private assumptions. When nude bodies were depicted prior to the 17th century, they were always categorized as art. Such depictions are artifacts of a past that has built our understandings of how the nude body should be expressed. They are, most importantly, artifacts of how the gendered nude body should behave. These images and sculptures are the artistic contribution to the construction of gender in western society. They are the visual reminders of what it means to be a man or a woman.
This exhibition explores how contemporary artists in the United States use photography to subvert these narratives of the white body in art. The exhibition limits its focus to the depiction of male bodies, since there is less variation in the male body depicted in western masterpieces. In each selection, the artist places him/herself in the canon of Western art by responding to masterpieces in a more contemporary medium and with a different perspective. This transformative engagement with these pieces opens the range of possible expressions of masculinity and the limits of the human body in general.
A major centerpiece of this exhibit is the work of Robert Mapplethorpe and specifically his photographs of nude black males. The exploration and inevitable insertion of black bodies into the Western canon is revolutionary. Black men have historically been stripped of their humanity. Mapplethorpe’s photography often contributes to this objectification, but remains revolutionary by explicitly arguing for the beauty and power of the male body in all races.
This exhibit will discuss how artists intersect sexuality, gender, and race in new art forms in order to subvert and expand the phenotypic concepts we have received and developed from centuries ago.
This exhibition explores how contemporary artists in the United States use photography to subvert these narratives of the white body in art. The exhibition limits its focus to the depiction of male bodies, since there is less variation in the male body depicted in western masterpieces. In each selection, the artist places him/herself in the canon of Western art by responding to masterpieces in a more contemporary medium and with a different perspective. This transformative engagement with these pieces opens the range of possible expressions of masculinity and the limits of the human body in general.
A major centerpiece of this exhibit is the work of Robert Mapplethorpe and specifically his photographs of nude black males. The exploration and inevitable insertion of black bodies into the Western canon is revolutionary. Black men have historically been stripped of their humanity. Mapplethorpe’s photography often contributes to this objectification, but remains revolutionary by explicitly arguing for the beauty and power of the male body in all races.
This exhibit will discuss how artists intersect sexuality, gender, and race in new art forms in order to subvert and expand the phenotypic concepts we have received and developed from centuries ago.