While the female body is regularly exposed in art, and the female nude is regularly exhibited, the male body has not been given the same attention. Why haven’t any retrospectives been held on the subject of male nudity? Even though it was for a long time the foundation of academic training from the 17th to the 19th centuries, and a key creative force in the West.
From September 24 onwards, the Musée d’Orsay will be shedding light on the human body. Drawing on the many riches of its own holdings and those of French public collections, the Musée D’Orsay’s “Masculin/masculin” exhibition seeks to explore in depth, in a way that is at once interpretative, playful, sociological and philosophical, all the dimensions and meanings of male nudity in art. Because the nineteenth century drew on the classicism of the eighteenth, and its echoes resonate right up to the present day, this exhibition broadens the traditional horizon of the Musée d’Orsay to embrace more than two centuries of creation, in all techniques – painting, sculpture, graphic art and, of course, photography – which will have an equal place in the exhibition.
Masculin/masculin is organized by the Musée d’Orsay in collaboration with Vienna’s Leopold Museum and runs from September 24 to January 2, 2014.
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