Small museums in this country, and probably everywhere, tend to be ignored. Most lack the kind of art and exhibition program that brings notice beyond their communities. But the Freeport Museum of Art, in northern Illinois, just did something that caught my eye: it organized an exhibition called The Nature of Masculinity.Â
Yes, there have been plenty of artists since the beginning of art who have focused on the male body, though a census of art that has gone down in history would probably find more female bodies. But here’s a show, in a small town (population 25,000) that is focused on men now, using the work of five photographers. The description, per the museum website, says:
The Nature of Masculinity explores how media plays a major role in the construction of masculinity, it has become an instructional guide on how society consumes and constructs gender identity. Once considered a one-dimensional concept, masculinity has become consumable through images just as the female form is commoditized in art and advertising, so is the male body. With the increasing acceptance of queer identity within mainstream culture, the definition of masculinity is ever-Ââ€changing. Gender identity is no longer a simple construction. Instead, masculinity has become a fluid concept, allowing attraction, lust, sexuality, and orientation to become subjective and malleable as individuals begin to construct gender identity for themselves. This exhibition critically examines stereotypes and offers a modern understanding of gender construction, through the photographic medium.
(That’s a direct quote: although the punctuation could use a little help, I did not attempt to fix it.)
What first interested me was not that summary; it was a photo in the local newspaper, The Journal-Standard. It’s something you don’t see all that often, as you can see from the detail I have posted here.
I wonder if this exhibition will attract or repel men. They make up too few of regular museum visitors, observation and studies show.
In some ways, I think many people are tired of viewing art through the gender lens. But maybe this show has found a fresh way to see men.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Journal-Standard