Made you Look: Dandyism and Black Masculinity

Self-conscious exhibition at the Photographers’ Gallery looking at how black men shape their self –image for the camera using clothes as performance, play and radical politics.

I  felt the exhibition wasn’t big enough to really explore the topic. The choices of images covered a wide range of dates and countries but somehow it felt a bit random and didn’t really explain the story they were trying to tell. Good pictures of a subject but no real narrative of the topic.

I loved a series from Senegal from about 1904 where men are showing their response to colonialism via their dress in formal portraits. Also the bright images by Hassan Hajgaj in frames made of tin cans.

My favourite picture was by Jeffry Henson Seales “Young man in plaid” from 1991 with an elegant guy in plain tights, a large straw hat and off the shoulder jumper, a wonderfully confident image.

Closes on 25 September 2016.

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