Museum of masculinity in question (Antwerp)
International exhibition ‘Males’ travels on from London
After London, Berlin and Arles, ‘Masculinites’ can be seen in the Antwerp Photo Museum. It questions the most important image of the successful man and shows work by fifty photographers, including Robert Mapplethorpe and Richard Avedon.
Frank Heirman
Curator Alona Pardo of London’s Barbican Center got the idea for ‘Masculinities’ in 2016. Driven by the Me Too movement, the project gained momentum and became an ambitious exhibition that would travel to Berlin, Arles and Antwerp. Due to corona, the exhibition is only now arriving at the Antwerp Photo Museum with delays.
“The final decades established feminism firmly in the classic image of the ideal woman, the clichés of the successful man persist all along,” believes Alona Pardo. “It is time we also got to know the modern man in multiple guises. The exhibition is therefore entitled ‘Masculinities’, with the emphasis on the plural, because in addition to the unshakable cowboy and soldier of the successful businessman, there are many other possibilities for the man to show.”
We get to see those other men through the lens of more than fifty photographers. There are many well-known names such as Richard Avedon, Duane Michals and Robert Mapplethorpe. The exhibit also looks at the man in India and Africa and integrates video films by Kenneth Anger and Andy Warhol into the show. The Netherlands is well represented with Rineke Dijksta, Bas Jan Ader and Hans Eijkelboom, but Belgian photographers are missing from the story.
Their absence is made up for by a generous fringe program that Jaouad Alloul has put together with guided tours and panel discussions about what can be intentional today.
www.fomu.be