Masculinities: Photography and Film from the 1960s to Now: Liberation through Photography

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Exhibition Masculinities: Liberation through Photography is curated and organised by Barbican Centre, London. The exhibition will then tour to Les Rencontres de la Photographie, Arles from 29 June – 20 September 2020 and Gropius-Bau, Berlin from 16 October 2020 until 10 January 2021. The exhibition is designed by vPPR Architects with graphic design by The Bon Ton. Hegemonic Masculinity‘Hegemonic’ means ‘ruling’ or ‘commanding’– hegemonic masculinity, therefore, indicates male dominance and the forms of masculinity occupying and perpetuating this Simone de Beauvoir’s famous declaration that ‘one is not born a woman, but rather becomes one’ provides a helpful springboard for considering what it means to be a male in today’s world, as well as the place of photography and film in shaping masculinity. What we have thought of as ‘masculine’ has changed considerably throughout history and within different cultures. The traditional social dominance of the male has determined a gender hierarchy which continues to underpin societies around the world. Participating artists Bas Jan Ader, Laurie Anderson, Kenneth Anger, Liz Johnson Artur, Knut Åsdam, Richard Avedon, Aneta Bartos, Richard Billingham, Cassils, Sam Contis, John Coplans, Jeremy Deller, Rineke Dijkstra, George Dureau, Thomas Dworzak, Hans Eijkelboom, Fouad Elkoury, Hal Fischer, Samuel Fosso, Anna Fox, Masahisa Fukase, Sunil Gupta, Kiluanji Kia Henda, Peter Hujar, Isaac Julien, Rotimi Fani- Kayode, Karen Knorr, Deana Lawson, Hilary Lloyd, Robert Mapplethorpe, Peter Marlow, Ana Mendieta, Annette Messager, Duane Michals, Tracey Moffatt, Andrew Moisey, Richard Mosse, Adi Nes, Catherine Opie, Elle Pérez, Herb Ritts, Kalen Na’il Roach, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Collier Schorr, Clare Strand, Mikhael Subotzky, Larry Sultan, Wolfgang Tillmans, Hank Willis Thomas, Piotr Uklański, Andy Warhol, Karlheinz Weinberger, Marianne Wex, David Wojnarowicz and more.

The exhibition is accompanied by a programme of guided tours and film screenings including Revolverkino at the Gropius Bau (11–13 November 2020). The guided tours take place on Sundays from 3 – 4 pm, on alternating weeks in English or German. MANDEM is an online media platform that offers a unique space for young men of colour to express themselves through writing, music and film. They provide a space for young people to engage in topical discussions centred around culture, politics and identity, while further encouraging them to challenge the narratives that appear in mainstream media.

Annie Hayter is a Barbican Young Poet. She won BBC Proms Young Poet in 2011, and was runner-up for Times Young Poet 2012. She’s performed at the Southbank Centre, Barbican, and on Radio 3. She is published in MAGMA and TimeOut. Examining depictions of masculinity from behind the lens, the Barbican brings together the work of over 50 international artists, photographers and filmmakers including Laurie Anderson, Sunil Gupta, Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Isaac Julien and Catherine Opie. Bas Jan Ader, Laurie Anderson, Kenneth Anger, Liz Johnson Artur, Knut Åsdam, Richard Avedon, Aneta Bartos, Richard Billingham, Cassils, Sam Contis, John Coplans, Jeremy Deller, Rineke Dijkstra, George Dureau, Thomas Dworzak, Hans Eijkelboom, Fouad Elkoury, Hal Fischer, Samuel Fosso, Anna Fox, Masahisa Fukase, Sunil Gupta, Kiluanji Kia Henda, Peter Hujar, Isaac Julien, Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Karen Knorr, Deana Lawson, Hilary Lloyd, Robert Mapplethorpe, Peter Marlow, Ana Mendieta, Annette Messager, Duane Michals, Tracey Moffatt, Andrew Moisey, Richard Mosse, Adi Nes, Catherine Opie, Elle Pérez, Herb Ritts, Kalen Na’il Roach, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Collier Schorr, Clare Strand, Mikhael Subotzky, Larry Sultan, Wolfgang Tillmans, Hank Willis Thomas, Piotr Uklański, Andy Warhol, Karlheinz Weinberger, Marianne Wex, David Wojnarowicz and Akram Zaatari Elias Williams is a filmmaker and founder of online media platform, mandemhood.com. He recently graduated with an MA in History from the University of Bristol and his film projects often explore untold histories. Elias’ work for MANDEM comprises providing a space for young men of colour to express themselves through writing, film and music, and has also included hosting panel-led discussions about topical issues around race, class and gender. Patriarchy Literally ‘the rule of the father’, a patriarchy is a society or structure centred around male dominance and in which women (and those of other genders) are not treated as or considered equal.

What comes to mind when you think of the word masculinity and yourself? Is it an item of clothing you often (or used to) wear? Is it an object related to your current or past relationships? Perhaps it's a part of your body (remember to keep it family friendly!) Vogue-Chi facilitates a collection of vital tools historically developed by LGBTQ+ people to engage positively in life and overcome institutionalized oppression, invisibilization and abuse. Vogue-Chi was created by artists/dancers Carlos Maria Romero aka Atabey Mamasita & Ted Rogers in Margate, UK for people aged over 50. It has evolved organically into a multi-generational queer and allies safe space for self-expression and coming together. In contrast to the conventions of the traditional family portrait, the artists gathered in the third chapter, Too close to Home: Family and Fatherhood, set out to record the “messiness” of life, reflecting on misogyny, violence, sexuality, mortality, intimacy and unfolding family dramas, presenting a more complex and not always comfortable vision of fatherhood and masculinity. If you’re photographing yourself or someone else - be sure to make the other person feels comfortable and safe and that you have their consent.

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A deftly curated show that explored the overlapping creative journeys of a photographer and sculptor who first crossed paths when they both were commissioned to create images of civilians sheltering in the London Underground during the blitz. Moore’s artful photographs of his sculptures were a surprise, while his up-close drawings of Stonehenge contrasted dramatically with Brandt’s more haunting images of the standing stones rising up from snow-covered fields. Another England reflected through the eyes of two brilliantly perceptive postwar artists. Read the full review. 2 Masculinities: Liberation Through Photography Bas Jan Ader (1945-1975), Laurie Anderson (1947), Kenneth Anger (1927), Knut Åsdam (1968), Richard Avedon (1923-2004), Aneta Bartos, Richard Billingham (1970), Cassils (1975), Sam Contis (1982), John Coplans (1920-2003), Rineke Dijkstra (1959), George Dureau (1930-2014), Thomas Dworzak (1972), Hans Eijkelboom (1949), Fouad Elkoury (1952), Rotimi Fani-Kayode (1955-1989), Hal Fischer (1950), Samuel Fosso (1962), Anna Fox (1961), Masahisa Fukase (1934-2012), Sunil Gupta (1953), Peter Hujar (1934-1987), Liz Johnson Artur (1964), Isaac Julien (1960), Kiluanji Kia Henda (1979), Karen Knorr (1954), Deana Lawson (1979), Hilary Lloyd (1964), Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989), Peter Marlow (1952-2016), Ana Mendieta (1948-1985), Annette Messager (1943), Duane Michals (1932), Tracey Moffatt (1960), Andrew Moisey (1979), Richard Mosse (1980), Adi Nes (1966), Catherine Opie (1961), Elle Pérez (1989), Herb Ritts (1952-2002), Kalen Na’il Roach (1992), Collier Schorr (1963), Paul Mpagi Sepuya (1982), Clare Strand (1973), Mikhael Subotzky (1981), Larry Sultan (1946-2009), Hank Willis Thomas (1976), Wolfgang Tillmans (1968), Piotr Uklański (1968), Karlheinz Weinberger (1921-2006), Marianne Wex (1937-2020), David Wojnarowicz (1954-1992), Akram Zaatari (1966). Daniel Regan is a photographic artist whose work focuses on complex emotional experiences, often using his own lived experience of mental health difficulties as the stimulus. He’s interested in how we use photography as a way to process life’s experiences and can find a deeper understanding of who we are through photographs. Over to Carlos to guide you through your Vogue-Chi activity, along with some suggested music to play:

Some may question whether there is a need to commemorate and create more spaces dedicated to masculinity? Indeed, aren’t most spaces in society created by men for men? The difference with this exhibition is that it is completely void of uncritical representations of the masculine norms we are all too familiar with. Curators Jane Alison and Alona Pardo state that the central question of the exhibition is ‘What does it mean to be male?’ A question that may seem misleadingly simple to some, but as demonstrated through the exhibit has a plurality of answers specifically with regard to geographical and temporal localities as well as gender, racial and sexual identities. Rebekka Yallop is an artist and writer based in London who works with moving image and text, often exploring queer themes. They were part of the Barbican’s Young Visual Arts group in 2019 and is currently one of Chisenhale Studios’ 2020 Into the Wild artists. They continue to make work, most recently a collaborative queer fiction zine.

“Men are having to live up to these ridiculous stereotypes, and that’s not healthy for them. It’s not healthy for anyone.”

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 including Laurie Anderson, Richard Avedon, Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Robert Mapplethorpe, Annette Messager and Wolfgang Tillmans offer a panorama of filmic and photographic explorations of masculinity rife with contradictions and complexity. The show also highlights lesser-known and younger artists such as Cassils, Sam Contis, George Dureau, Elle Pérez, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Hank Willis Thomas and Karlheinz Weinberger, among many others. Touching on themes of patriarchy, power, queer identity, race, class, sexuality and hyper-masculine stereotypes, as well as female perceptions of men, the works present masculinity as an unfixed, performative identity. Through the medium of film and photography, this major exhibition considers how masculinity has been coded, performed, and socially constructedfrom the 1960s to the present day. Examining depictions of masculinity from behind the lens, the exhibition brings together the work of over 50 international artists, photographers and filmmakers includingLaurie Anderson,Sunil Gupta,Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Isaac JulienandCatherine Opie. In the wake of #MeToo, the image of masculinity has come into sharper focus, with ideas of toxic and fragile masculinity permeating today’s society. This exhibition charts the often complex and sometimes contradictory representations of masculinities, and how they have developed and evolved over time. Touching on themes including power, patriarchy, queer identity, racial politics, female perceptions of men, hypermasculinestereotypes, tendernessand the family, the exhibition examines the critical role photography and film have played in the way masculinitiesareimagined and understood in contemporary culture. Although photography has often been dominated by men taking pictures of women through a ‘male gaze’, the exhibition’s final and subversive section ‘Women on Men’ seeks to reverse this gaze. The works of Marianne Wex and Tracey Moffatt are displayed in this section alongside Laurie Anderson’s project ‘ Fully Automated Nikon’ and illustrate the use of a re-appropriated ‘female gaze’ to scrutinize objectification and sexism experienced by women. Anderson uses her camera lens to reverse the gaze and render visible assaults which leave women feeling exposed. Her photographs create a role reversal wherein she exposes men, thus rendering them powerless, not dissimilarly to Laura Bates’ pivotal project ‘Everyday Sexism’ aimed at cataloguing instances of everyday sexism. Moffatt’s comic and awkward short film consisting of video snippets of surfers changing out of their wetsuits investigates, not dissimilarly, the subject voyeurism and intrusion. Kobena Mercer, ‘Reading Racial Fetishism: The Photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe’, in Emily Apter and William Pietz, eds, Fetishism as Cultural Discourse (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993), pp. 307–29. Stephanie Rosenthal, Director of the Gropius Bau, states: “Today, common perceptions of what it means to be or to become a man are increasingly questioned, especially for younger generations, who are confronted with these questions in a completely different way. The exhibition Masculinities: Liberation through Photography offers a nuanced examination of masculinities in all their facets and shades. The works by over 50 international artists on view in the exhibition build a bridge from classical images of masculinity to gender-fluid identities, thus doing justice to a complex reality.”

dominant position. The term was coined in the 1980s by the scholar R. W. Connell, drawing on the Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci’s notion of cultural hegemony. In this exercise we'll be photographing an object of meaning that represents an element of ‘masculinity’ in your life. You can make your photograph any way that you like - on a smart phone, digital or film camera, depending on what you feel most comfortable with. Step 1: Find your objectThe first British retrospective of Sunil Gupta’s work brings together material from across his long and varied career, from the scenes of everyday gay life in New York that he chronicled for his breakthrough series, Christopher Street , in 1976, to 2008’s elaborately constructed and highly symbolic vignettes, The New Pre-Raphaelites. “What does it mean to be a gay Indian man?” he has said of his photography. “This is the question that follows me around everywhere I go.” Read more. 4 Photoworks festival 2020 Barbican Art Gallery reopens Masculinities: Liberation through Photography, a major group exhibition that explores how masculinity is experienced, performed, coded and socially constructed as expressed and documented through photography and film from the 1960s to the present day. A vast, ambitious and timely group show that featured more than 300 works from 50 artists, including Richard Avedon, Peter Hujar, Annette Messager, Catherine Opie and Karlheinz Weinberger, Masculinities explored the ways in which maleness is represented, coded and challenged through the medium of photography. Highlights included Karen Knorr’s acutely perceptive series, Gentlemen, which explores male privilege and entitlement through the prism of private male clubs in Mayfair, and Jeremy Deller’s film about wrestler Adrian Street, a study of a peculiarly English form of theatrical high camp. Read the full review. 1 Zanele Muholi Since its invention photography has been a powerful vehicle for the construction and documentation of family narratives. In contrast to the conventions of the traditional family portrait, the artists gathered here deliberately set out to record the ‘messiness’ of life, reflecting on misogyny, violence, sexuality, mortality, intimacy and unfolding family dramas, presenting a more complex and not always comfortable vision of fatherhood and masculinity.