The exhibition MEN brings together photographers offering new perspectives on masculinity. Their works, spanning from the 1980s to today, examine identity constructions related to culture, power, performance, and otherness.
Robert Mapplethorpe, known for his autobiographical approach and his photographs of the naked dancer Ajitto, elevates the male body in staged, sculptural photographs, where eroticism meets classicism.
Andres Serrano challenges virile iconography with Hercules Punishing Diomedes (1990), a mythological battle in a mixture of blood and urine, questioning the sacredness of representations and their morality, in the same way as his Black Supper (1990), a monumental work reinventing Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper.
Other artists, such as self-taught Tomasz Machciński, explore identity through elaborate role-playing, while Louis Jammes captures the aura of his subjects through hybrid portraits, from Figuration Libre to Warhol and Basquiat.
More recent works by David Meskhi highlight athletes’ bodies through his photographs of colorful men, bathed in light, the lines of force of the male body. Pierre-Elie de Pibrac’s series Desmemoria (2016–2017) explores the heritage of Cuban sugar communities.
Felipe Romero Beltrán’s Dialect series (2020–2022) gives a political dimension to the male body by portraying isolated migrant minors in Spain, showing them in choreographies that reflect the bureaucratic oppression they endure, frozen in wait for their legal status to be decided for them.
Together, MEN shows how male artists interrogate their own image, reveal vulnerabilities, and deconstruct stereotypes with critical and sensitive vision.
Espace Art Absolument
Espace Art Absolument presents an ambitious and international program of temporary exhibitions, linked to its own magazine. The gallery serves as a space for dialogue, also hosting conferences, meetings, and book signings. Since its opening, notable exhibitions have included Elles d’abord !, Terre d’artistes, David Tremlett: Wall Drawing, Songes, Le rendez-vous des amis de Régis Debray, and upcoming MEN in November 2025.