About
Contributers: Exterface, Mikel Marton, Cathal O'brien, Matthew Brindle, Justino Esteves, Elizabeth Eamer, Theo Firmo, Emma Gibson, Anna Kriskova, Anna Stubbe, Echo Morgan, Alex Noble, Moses Powers, Ed Relph, Jens Stolze
Fanzines: BUTT, PinUps, Spunk, Anal, Flit.
Light and Illustration installation: Prick Image and Alex Noble
This exhibition seeks to celebrate and explore the male nude, celebrating those who examine, muse and obsess over this controversial subject.
Exhibiting work from a new generation of home grown and international artists: from Paris duo Exterface intensely stylized nude narratives to Canada's Mikel Marton, who's male nude portraits are winning critical acclaim across America and around the world.
Alongside photography, mixed media work and 3D installation will be covers from ground breaking Butt magazine and fanzines including New York's PinUps and Spunk. Aiding the review of the Male Nude's place in a commercial and subcultural context.
Male nudity has always been more subversive than it's female counterpart, falling in and out of popularity through out art history, but always celebrated and developed by the gay and erotic arts.
The âgaze' has shifted from being predominantly on women to men in fashion, film and advertising, and within the last decade the increasing trend for homo eroticism and full frontal male nudity begs the question, what is the place of the male nude in contemporary society? And will it ever develop and evolve into being as common place as a pair of breasts in a newspaper?
As it takes more and more to shock us, what now is the reaction towards the male nude, and can the more untraditional images and growing trend for alternative visions of beauty be viewed in their own right with out being labelled homo erotic, classicist or pornographic.
(c) curation and text by Alex Noble
