Cathy's Art Diary

Lively online   discussion from the National Gallery looking at fashion and masculinity via portraits in the gallery’s collection. The event was chaired by Jacqui Ansell, an expert of the history of fashion, who brought together ph student Holly James Johnson dressed as her drag king alter ego Orlando and fashion journalist Mark O’Flaherty. They started by looking at the clone like male fashion in Manet’s “Music in the Tuileries” from 1862 then looked back to the 18th century to discuss how styles had changed from a more ornate aesthetic.   They looked at the ideas of the Macaroni and Dandy and the clothing of the Grand Tour and how styles which look feminine to us were considered masculine at the time. I liked the free flow of this event with some fascinating facts and stories coming out of the discussion.

Interesting exhibition at the Barbican Art Gallery looking at how masculinity has been considered in photography and art film since the 1960s. The show was divided into six sections;   the archetype;   power and patriarchy; fatherhood and family; Queer masculinity; Black masculinity and women on men revising the male gaze. It built an artistic and sociological view of the subject and opened up many ideas to continue thinking about. There were some stunning pictures and I’d highlight Rineke Dijkstra’s pictures of matador straight from the ring partly because I’d seen more work by her a few days earlier, Michael Subotzky startlingly heartless images of prisoners in South Africa and Peter Hujar’s pictures of gay men hanging out at the St Christopher Street pier, one of which is shown here. The photographer that stood out for me though was Hans Eijleboon with two series of pictures partially using versions of himself in the images. In one set he posed convincingly in the fa...