Exhibitions of Artwork Featuring the Male Nude
Dan
http://museumofsex.com/exhibitions/MWS/index.html
Set against a timeline tracing male nude imagery from classical Greece
to the 21st Century, Men Without Suits explores the impact of
photography on American culture. Challenging the statement "Clothes
make the man," the exhibition uncovers the facades and persona created
in our society with what men wear. Interestingly, it also reveals these
guises continue when the clothes come off.
Who makes the images? What is their purpose? Who consumes them? Men
Without Suits asks and answers these and many more questions, exploring
the nature of male erotic appeal, the objectification of the male
physique, and the notions of the male nude as both a fantasy and a
commodity.
Beginnings
>From 5-4th B.C. Greeks and, later Romans celebrated the naked bodies of
youthful athletes and mature philosopher kings. In the 14th and 15th
centuries Renaissance thinkers and artists viewed the human body as a
reflection of divine perfection. Scientific study of anatomy and new
drawing techniques created the need for live models. In the mid 18thand
early 19th century artists repositioned the Classical male nude as
aesthetic and socially acceptable. New public museums and galleries
collect and display Classical sculpture.
Male body as art
Photographs for the masses drove the explosion of images of men without
suits. In the 1870 and 80s Baron von Gloden and others promoted
Mediterranean exoticism. In the 1890s Koch and Rieth create studio
artist tools in the 1890s. By the 1910s and 20s Studio Arax in Paris
and Edwin Townsend in New York, among others, developed an aesthetic
for photographing the male nude, which was developed in the 1930s and
40s by George Platt Lynes. Photographers including Robert Maplethrope
moved the male nude as art into mainstream culture, where it continues
to be celebrated, and admired.
Health and nature
19th century physical culture inspired group participation in nudism
and exercise, which was supported by magazines and books. Publicly
displaying muscle mass enhanced by lifting weights launched many
performing and competitive careers from Eugene Sandow in 1880s to
Charles Atlas in the 1930s and 40s to Arnold Schwarzenegger in the
1970s.
Pumping iron has infiltrated mainstream culture through Marvel comics,
the World Wresting Federation and Hollywood action movies.
American century-beefcake
Americans turned beefcake photography into big business. In the 1930s
and 40s photographers convinced young body builders and athletes to
pose nude. These photographers pushed the definition of obscenity by
disseminated images through sales of photographs and a range of
magazines. Male physique magazines served purposes other and the
promotion of exercise and working out at the gym.
Male nude in the mainstream
Social upheaval and cultural changes in the 1960s changed male nude
photography. The boundaries between the erotic and the pornographic
were erased as underground images of man-on-man sex and a gay
sensibility moved into mainstream culture. Super 8, Beta, VHS and DVDs
added movies to the range of male nude expression. While pornography
raised awareness of male bodies, male nude images permeate advertising,
the music industry and the movies. Beginning in the 1930s no male star
was without a shirtless picture for his portfolio. Rockers and rappers
have groomed bad boy images by stripping. Today male nudes help
position products for female and gay and straight males.
Men Without Suits opens June 16, 2005.
Exhibition Credits
CURATORIAL
John E. Vollmer Curator
Sarah Jacobs Assistant Curator
Karen Eckhaus Research
DESIGN
Casson Mann Design Conceptual Design
Charles Gansa Video/Audio Production
Kimberly McClelland Video/Audio Production Assistant
Jim Richards Temple Construction, Installation Assistance
LENDERS
Dennis Bell, Athletic Model Guild
BigKugels.com
David Chapman
David Leddick
Vintagenudephotos.com
ADVISORS
David Chapman
Jim Kempster
David Leddick
Robert Loncar
Mark Rotenberg
Tim Wilber
Dan
New Male Nude Photographs at Baileys at the Fringe
http://www.normyip.com/fineart/General&News/Skin%20Deep/skindeep_info.htm
Hong Kong - 'Skin Deep' is a photographic exhibition by Norm Yip
that further develops and explores the subject matter of the nude Asian
male. With new guys from Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong, this
exhibition demonstrates again how Asian men can be represented in an
artistic, exotic, provocative and sensuous manner. Featured will be
large-scale light-box photographic transparencies, which will
illuminate the gallery space of Baileys at the Fringe as Norm offers
his personal vision of male beauty and aesthetic sensitivity.
This photographic exhibition explores the possibilities of extracting
more that the surface to nude/semi-nude male body. Could there be more
than what meets the eye? Can it transcend beyond the visual sense and
into the core of the individual of either the model or viewer? Can it
effectuate society in an active manner and not be just a part of the
cultural history and fabric in which we live in? Will and do these
photographs make an impact on how we live, see, perceive and express
ourselves? In Skin Deep, the male body and face is used as a subject
and a tool for investigating what lies beneath the immediate nature of
the nude.
Norm elaborates, "I realize photography has become a sort of mirror
to my own identity; I need it from an internal creative perspective,
which could be deemed selfish. But upon releasing this work to the
audience, the viewer, it becomes part of the social context and part of
the fabric in which we live in, but only to the point that a message
can be digested, remembered, and acted upon, whether internally or
externally'.
To Norm, photography was initially a tool for releasing creative
energy, like most artists that are seeking resolve and understanding of
one's self. In his investigation of the male nude, as shown in his
subjects of Asian men, he discovered that his artwork touched the
people around him in ways that that he never envisioned or foresaw. His
Asian male nudes offered confidence to Asian men abroad and locally,
empowering the racially segregated and bringing beauty to where there
seemed none before.
Exhibition Details
'Skin Deep' will be held at the Baileys at the Fringe, Fringe Club
from 16 - 28 September, 2006. 2 Lower Albert Road, Central, Hong
Kong. Tel. 2521 7251. Reception will be held on Saturday, 16 September
2006, 6 - 8pm. 25% of all sales of artwork will be donated to The
Society for Aids Care.
About the Photographer
Norm Yip was born and raised in Saskatchewan, Canada. He holds a B.
Arts (U of Saskatchewan) and a B. Architecture (U of Toronto). In 1994,
he moved to Hong Kong and worked for two years as an architect before
leaving the field to pursue photography and art.
Norm Yip's photographs of Asian males have appeared in international
male publications such as 2blue and Dreamboys 2 and Hong Kong magazines
G Magazine and Dim Sum. Last year, Norm published his first photography
book entitled 'The Asian Male - 1.AM', which was well received in
Hong Kong, the US/Canada and Australia.
Reviews
How much can an Asian male bare?
Not quite enough for Norm Yip
by Dave Evans
South China Morning Post, Sunday, September 17, 2006 -- [see actual
review]
There's more to some of his new exhibition than meets the eye, writes
David Evans - but sometimes they're just cute guys
Like many great discoveries, some of the photographs in Norm Yip's
forthcoming exhibition Skin Deep came about by accident.
Sitting in his Sheung Wan office-cum-sludio-cum-home, the
Saskatchewan-native says that when he was cleaning blemishes off some
nude male shots, he found that by playing with the features of his
digital photography software he was able to add a grainy and pixelated
surface. In doing so, he created a texture that adds depth to the shots
and is further accentuated by their large-scale, light-box
presentation.
He indicates the texture in one of the charcoal prints that hangs on
his studio wall, and says that people have sat and stared at it for
hours. It's this kind of captivation that he's trying to recreate with
his photographs.
"I want people to question whether we can see beyond beauty," says the
43-year-old former architect, who includes wedding photographer and
artist on his CV. "I want to enhance that quality, but go deeper into
the image and engage the viewer. Large-scale work has been done many
times before, but big is captivating and it draws people closer. If you
look, the surface is like little islands on the skin - another world.
The outcome is a geographic map of the body in a colourful way."
Those familiar with Yip's artistic photography will know that
black-and-white images of well-toned, young Asian males are his
stock-in-trade in his quest to show a wider audience what he sees as
the reality behind Asian beauty. A visit to his website's guestbook
proves he's not the only one (male or female) with that view, as does
the success of his book The Asian Male - 1AM.
For this latest exhibition, which opened yesterday, Yip has branched
out with some abstract shots - a new departure. Of the dozen or so
shots, at least half are manipulated images of males shot against a
black background and with heavy use of shadow. The results are a series
of disembodied torsos, many mimicking the poses of classic Renaissance
sculptures, but with a hue and texture that take the viewer beyond
titillation.
This foray into abstraction and manipulation may go some way to
answering the question in the press release for Skin Deep -"Could there
be more than meets the eye?" - in the affirmative. But the response
from the other half dozen pictures is a resounding: no". The
black-and-white studies of models from Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and
Hong Kong suggest that Yip still isn't ready to let go of his roots.
"The exhibition presents a certain view and how people take that in is
up to them," he says. "I didn't have an agenda. I wasn't going to show
the world that Asian people are beautiful. I just got this itch. I need
to show something to people. Every time I saw a face [in the
photograph], I didn't get the need to [add the texture]. If the body is
more towards abstraction and the model is comfortable with it, I move
away from personalities. "I tried photographing two models together,
but they weren't comfortable with touching each other - you can see it
in the pictures. They'd be good for an exhibition on betrayal and
cheating, but not for this one."
Yip's mission remains, for now at least, to raise the profile of the
Asian male as a thing of beauty. He hopes this will help boost the
confidence of Asian men, both in Hong Kong and abroad. He says, for
instance, that finding a Hong Kong Chinese model was like pulling teeth
without anesthetic.
Even among the professional models, and fitness coaches and fanatics he
uses from around the region, there's still a reluctance to bare. "There
was one model, Amin - his girlfriend introduced him to me. He loves his
body, but he put his shirt straight back on after the shoot," says Yip.
And although male visitors to the exhibition are unlikely to feel the
need to rip off their shirts and run into the street, Yip's photos
offer a hint of what might lie beyond the simple homoerotic images that
fuel a gay fantasy of the Asian male - although Yip says he may have a
way to go to before he breaks the stereotype. "Some gay friends I have
say: 'Norm, if you move towards abstraction, you're not going to sell.
We just want to see more cute guys'."
David Evans
Norm Yip: "Skin Deep"
by Raimund Tse
Juxtaposition as a mental activity is probably what lingers in the
minds of the viewers of "Skin Deep", the latest project by the Hong
Kong-based Canadian-Chinese artist, Norm Yip. An activity per se
though, the juxtaposition runs a much richer context than its rendition
in the visual images, their presentation and perception by the viewers
that it resides as well in the creative philosophies of the artist as
another endeavour to explore further the "ownership of aesthetics" and
"the relationship between the artist, objet d'art and the viewers".
The "Skin Deep" series comprises two constituents - the "real" and the
"abstract" parts. While the "real" part can be considered as a
continuation of Yip's creative journey with the vehicle of nude male
bodies, it is but also a prelude and juxtaposite to the "abstract" part
of the series.
The "abstract" part of the series renders an experimentation of Yip in
coalescing photography and "sculpture on print", as an interplay of
senses, over the touch, thermoception and sight, between human bodies
and human-body sculptures made of granite, marble and wood - on
print, against backdrops of hues of ocean, fire and flora. One should
not be surprised if such interplay dwells on one's olfactory sense.
Beyond the realm of senses, the juxtaposites also lie in the degree of
abstraction. Against the commonest macroscopic treatment of "abstract"
concepts, and such on microscopic of "real", Yip attempts
antagonistically in achieving "abstract" manifestation by a
microscopic perspective while attaining "real" by macroscopic.
In Yip's creative philosophies, photography resides at the heart of his
"physical" or "social" creative state, in which there is a low
level of "ownership of aesthetics" and close "relationship between Yip
and the objet d'art", alongside the "emotional" and "spiritual"
states as in his works of graphite drawings and paintings respectively
in which there is a higher level of aesthetics ownership and looser
relationship.
Amidst the higher level of "ownership of aesthetics" and close
"relationship between Yip and the objet d'art", noticeably in the
"abstract" part of the series, than others in Yip's repertoire of
photography, one may, consciously or not, discern that there is a
stronger yet quasi-direct interaction, unprecedented in the artist's
previous works, between Yip and the viewers in the interplay of senses
residing at the latter. In that sense, this series additionally serves
as a transposition of relationship between Yip and the objet d'art to
that between Yip and the viewers in terms of the artistic orientation
and impact.
The "Skin Deep" is an experimenting endeavour by Yip in creating
"intermediate" metaphysical states of his creation, thus equipping Yip
with infinite media of creation in the future.
Raimund Tse
August 29th, 2006
Raimund Tse comes to the awareness of his keen interest in arts,
espeically in literature, architecture, photography, films,
installation, or indeed, cross-disciplinary arts, at quite late an age.
He is a writer and poet at heart, and a commentator and an appreciator
of arts in training. Yet he is endeavoring to search for artistic
elements in his previous work of various fields.
Hearty
Redefining what art means to be gay
BY WAYNE NORTHCROSS
The rainbow banner that hangs above the entrance to the gallery is the
tip-off. Unmistakable as a gay symbol and imbued with the ability to
attract and repulse gays simultaneously, this beacon of liberation or
conformism, depending on your point-of-view, announces "The Name of
This Show is Not Gay Art Now," a sprawling salon style summer show,
curated by artist Jack Pierson, which includes more than seventy works
by as many artists-whose queerness depends on interpretation. The
question, "what is gay art?" is the same as "what is art?" It
sounds like a provocation and a polemic, like Pierson declaring in the
press release that gay art is passé, but the question and its answer
are ones that the public is used to. As Duchamp solved the what-is-art
riddle in with his infamous urinal, Pierson pulls a similar subversive
trick here.
There is work by acknowledged gay artists such as McDermott & McGough,
Andy Warhol, Marsden Hartley, Stephen Tashjian, and John Waters, and
work by others whose gay quotient is still largely unresolved, such as
Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. To make the game of
interpretation more challenging Pierson chose straight artists such as
Matthew Barney-whose inclusion Pierson acknowledges is due partly
because he's hot-and women artists such as Elizabeth Peyton, Nan
Goldin, and Collier Schorr, who have the only glaringly homoerotic work
in the show. Formally there are brain-teasing nuggets as well. David
Hockney's "Vichy Water and Howard's End, Carennac," a
colorless, semi-transparent still life of a table setting, luridly
rendered in ink on paper, is ostensibly gay because the artist is;
however, his works that get more gay play are paintings of beautiful
men glimpsed from behind. Ron Pruitt's abstracted "Cocaine," a
spider web of glittery enamel paint is perhaps a metaphorical portrait
of gay men shattered by drug-fueled hedonism. However, the queer secret
of Cy Twombly's "Untitled (Captiva)" with its characteristic
naïve loops is hidden. Worse than being confounded by the show's
logic, I was shamed by the number of artists I didn't know and whose
works are immediately seducing, such as M. Scott Ewalt's Aubrey
Beardsley inspired bacchanalia "Marc and Antony," Walter
Cassidy's haunting chiaroscuro still life, "I've Been Thinking
About You Baby," and Andrea Fraser's "Um Monumonto Ás Fantasias
Descartadas," a large mound of discarded Brazilian carnival costumes.
While the selection of artists sounds messy, the show's tone and
spirit cohere to Pierson's own aesthetic and comprise his major
themes such as desire, loneliness, and melancholia. The "now" in
the show's title could be less a sly jab at the art world's current
preoccupation with young MFA graduates than a reference to Pierson's
examination of cultural nostalgia. In this way "Gay Art Now" feels
like an exhibition that should have been mounted decades ago, perhaps
in the 1980s in the East Village, when terms like gay, straight, bi,
trans, whatever were less fixed and when everyone seemed queer, the
music was bizarre and surprising, and where the art was local not
global.
The dots do connect and the puzzle can be solved, and, just like a
Suduko brainteaser, the process takes some effort, although I must
admit it helped me that Pierson was on hand to help explain the
show's veiled narrative of collaboration and relationships. For
example, Pruitt's aforementioned work knocks boots with his boyfriend
Jonathan Horowitz' "Portrait of Elizabeth Taylor (AIDS
Activists);" Don Bachardy's portrait of artist Kembra Pfahler plays
off her own work, "Dance;" Lyle Ashton Harris' Polaroid print of
the artist Antony similarly nods to his ink of paper drawing.
The show's many strengths do not revolve around an accounting of
which contemporary gay artists are the cream, nor do they resolve the
contradictory motives behind including gay, straight, contemporary,
forgotten or dead artists-or in the purposeful omission of homoerotic
content by gay male artists. It's enough that Pierson has the
imaginative vision to produce a summer show that is whimsical, fun,
enlightening, challenging, and intensely personal. I shudder to think
that in the hands of a less inspired curator the show might have been
another uninspired, historical homage to the male nude.