Gianluca Chiodi
Tobias A. Feltus
Robert Flynt
Frank Gabriel
Edward Lucie-Smith
Roberto Rincon
Vladimir Tatarevic
Marc Wayland
Jonathan Webb
Dimitris Yeros
Edward Lucie-Smith
Versions & Perversions. This selection of male imagery is an attempt to break through some of the stereotypes that now characterize this particular photographic genre. On the one hand, photographs of the nude or nearnude male are thought of as controversial, because of their homoerotic content, which contravenes social norms in many cultures. On the other hand, they are avant-garde in a fashion that doesn't usually apply to female nudes. Curated by Edward Lucie-Smith.
curated by Edward Lucie-Smith
Participating Artists:
Gianluca Chiodi (Milan), Tobias A. Feltus (Edinburgh), Robert Flynt (New York), Frank Gabriel (The Hague), Edward Lucie-Smith (London), Roberto Rincon (London), Vladimir Tatarevic (Belgrade), Marc Wayland (London), Jonathan Webb (Paris), Dimitris Yeros (Athens).
This selection of male imagery is an attempt to break through some of the stereotypes that now
characterize this particular photographic genre. On the one hand, photographs of the nude or nearnude
male are thought of as controversial, because of their homoerotic content, which contravenes
social norms in many cultures. On the other hand, they are avant-garde in a fashion that doesn’t
usually apply to female nudes. The latter tend to annoy entrenched feminists, who see them as proof
of the theory of the ‘controlling gaze’ – proof of the way in which male scopophilia demeans
women. The rest of the world simply tends to think of them as kitsch, which is to say as images that
may indeed provide erotic stimulation, but which have little or no presence as artistically intended
object.
The link between erotic representation and the idea of avant-gardism is of course a long established
one. Erotic content tends to guarantee the bold, controversial nature of images that, without this,
would seem tamely unexceptional. In other words, eroticism is the easy route to shock, and shock
and artistic experimentation are now, at least in the minds of the general public, inseparably joined.
Additionally, where nudes are concerned, naked males have somehow achieved a position of artistic
if not social respectability that is now for some reason denied to females.
The present, extremely international anthology of photographic images of the male uses an
extremely wide variety of techniques, and shows how far the term ‘photography’ can now be
stretched. It also demonstrates very different approaches, on the part of individual photographers, to
the same subject matter. Human bodies have been a central theme for art, and particular for western
art, since the time of the Greeks and the Romans. And for long periods, it was the male body that
preponderated, while representation of women, clothed or naked, took a very secondary place. This
show is intended to interrogate that tradition, and also to revive it. If anything in it can be regarded
as truly avant-garde, that is an accident of history. Indeed, if there is anything revolutionary about it,
this can be found in the way it questions many clichés about the nature of artistic innovation.
Opening: Friday, 3rd April 2009 8-11 pm
Werkstattgalerie
Eisenacher Str. 6 - Berlin