Masculinities: Liberation through Photography

Barbican Center, London, UK

The exhibition brings together over 300 works by over 50 pioneering international artists, photographers including John Coplans and Paul Mpagi Sepuya to show how photography and film have been central to the way masculinities are imagined and understood in contemporary culture. Masculinities: Liberation through Photography is part of the Barbican’s 2020 season, Inside Out, which explores the relationship between our inner lives and creativity.

 

Jane Alison, Head of Visual Arts, Barbican, said: "I am delighted that we can now reopen our Masculinities: Liberation through Photography exhibition, which had met with such acclaim earlier in the year. It is not to be missed during this limited run. Masculinities continues our commitment to presenting leading twentieth century figures in the field of photography while also supporting younger contemporary artists working in the medium today. Given the inclusion of such a diverse array of images, the exhibition enriches our understanding of what it is to be a man in today’s world."

 

With ideas around masculinity and terms such as ‘toxic’ and ‘fragile’ masculinity filling endless column inches, the exhibition surveys the representation of masculinity in all its myriad forms, rife with contradiction and complexity. Presented across six sections by over 50 international artists to explore the expansive nature of the subject, the exhibition touches on themes of queer identity, the black body, power and patriarchy, female perceptions of men, hypermasculine stereotypes, fatherhood and family. The works in the show present masculinity as an unfixed performative identity shaped by cultural and social forces.