September 1, 2004 – October 1, 2004

The Male Body Image represents several generations of artists, both male and female, who examine the myths and realities of masculinity as figured in the male body. This show highlights the post-Vietnam-era male body as conceptually, ideologically, even physically fragmented- the legacy of a war that shattered American myths about masculinity and the male body. Age, vulnerability, impotence, obesity, homosexuality, racial otherness, and desirability from the conceptual palette from which these male body-dare we simply refer to them as men?—are composed. Masculinity is as much an ideological trap as femininity has been shown to be. The Male Body Image is about the limits of those traps—both their ability to delimit us and how limited they are, ultimately, in their ability to define us.
Curated by Professors Janet Pritchard and Barry Rosenberg.

Featured Artists
Vito Acconci
John Copians
Lyle Ashton Harris
Jacqueline Hayden
Alan Labb
Deborah Luster
Robert Mapplethorpe
John O’Reilly
David Rosenthal
C. D. Wright