H401
23 oktober 2020 – 1 maart 2021
Groepstentoonstelling
Sinds de #MeToo-beweging wordt de verbinding tussen mannelijkheid en macht nauwlettend in de gaten gehouden. De focus op ‘toxic masculinity’ heeft invloed op onze perceptie van mannelijke seksualiteit en beïnvloedt het zelfbeeld en de eigenwaarde van mannen aanzienlijk. Mannen worden door anderen beschaamd en ook zij voelen zich beschaamd. Dit programma verkent en onderzoekt de representatie van mannelijke schaamte, naaktheid, vaderschap, geweld, verkrachting, fascisme en viriliteit, mannen en oorlog vanuit zowel mannelijk als vrouwelijk perspectief. Het programma presenteert hedendaagse werken die ingaan op de complexiteit en de tegenstrijdigheden van deze socioculturele constructies en realiteiten en combineert een wetenschappelijke benadering met het artistieke perspectief, persoonlijke verhalen, gesprekken en workshops.
108 x 150 cm
Curator Ernst van Alphen laat zien hoe sinds de jaren ’60 de representatie van mannelijkheid in de beeldcultuur sterk is veranderd, met o.a. politician, stateswoman, lul, dick by dawn, enlarged van Ina van Zyl, de universal souvenir serie van Natasja Kensmil, de soundscape special boy van Philip Miller en een uitgebreid prenten kabinet van Marlene Dumas met niet eerder publiek getoond werk zoals: the sexuality of christ, man bound to his own sight, whatever happened to the greeks! En met de werken van Jeanette Christensen la reproduction interdit, Arnoud Holleman familie en vrienden, sculpturen van alabaster en soapstone van Hans Hovy, een videowerk van Nalini Malani en chronophotography, nrs 1 t/m 5 van Artur Żmijewski.
H401
23 October 2020 – 1 March 2021
Group exhibition
An exhibition curated by Ernst van Alphen
With works by: Ina van Zyl (NL/ZA), Natasja Kensmil (NL), Philip Miller (ZA), Marlene Dumas (NL), Jeanette Christensen (NO), Arnoud Holleman (NL), Hans Hovy (NL), Nalini Malani (IN), Artur Żmijewski (PL)
“Recent Me Too scandals have led to two powerful affects in people: anger and shame. Those two affects are intimately related, because anger is often expressed by inflicting shame on the person at whom the anger is directed, as in ‘shame on you!’ We punish people by making them shameful. Whereas the former affect of anger and ‘shame on you!’ is directed against the perpetrators, the affect of shame is much more difficult to locate. It can be experienced by victims, bystanders, as well as by perpetrators, and people who identify with one of these positions. But because of the fact that Me Too perpetrators are most often male, the affect of shame is especially felt by men. Shame that is felt from within manifests itself as a failure or absence of contact, the loss of feedback from others, indicating social isolation and signalling the need for relief of that situation.
In order to better understand how masculinities have been shaped by feelings of shame, the exhibition explores the different manifestations of shame, in intimate relation with its repercussions on masculinity.
The following conclusions about masculinity in visual culture form the starting point for this exhibition. Whereas women are depicted as defined by their sexuality, as sexual beings, in the representation of men their sexuality plays a minor role. Their genitals do not occupy a special place in the representation of their masculinity; they are comparable with any other body part. And even more importantly: women are always highly self-conscious of their sexuality, whereas men are depicted in such a way that they do not show any awareness of their sexuality. Theirs exists only in the eye of the beholder. This has repercussions for the affect of shame. In visual culture the shameful sexuality of men can be dealt with in two ways. First, by denying shame and showing no signs of any awareness of their sexuality; second, by refusing any representations of shameful male sexuality in the visual domain. This is no option for women; their sexuality is always present in visual culture, as something shameful that should be hidden, following the Venus pudica tradition; or as something that should be exploited and exposed shamelessly as an object of desire and more recently also as a subject of desire.
But of course, since the 1960s the second feminist wave has changed a lot in the representation of masculinity in visual culture. For this exhibition, works by a variety of contemporary artists, both male and female, have been selected, in order to explore the issues that for centuries have determined representations of masculinity, especially, but not exclusively, of male sexuality. How self-conscious are men in the depictions of their sexuality? Is their sexuality addressed in a shameful or a shameless way? Is masculinity depending on male authority and power, or not?”