Striking a Pose for What It Means to Be a Man

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Jason Farago

“Untitled” (1985) by Rotimi Fani-Kayode, featured in the exhibition “Masculinities: Liberation Through Photography” at the Barbican Art Gallery in London through May 17. Rotimi Fani-Kayode; via Autograph

LONDON — I know we all have bigger concerns now — the swelling hospitals, the swooning markets — but I can’t stop turning over the case of Benjamin Griveaux, the French politician who dropped out of the race for Paris mayor last month. Masculinities soften and harden, and men fashion themselves in new ways, against new backdrops, with new tools. And if gender is a performance, social media has given it the intensity, and sometimes the reach, of a Hollywood production. I fear you won’t find much of these changes in “Masculinities,” a soggy and slothful exhibition at the Barbican Art Gallery in London through May 17. It’s a photography and film show, and it includes 50 artists, men and women, but its research is thin and its surprises are few. [More]