An exhibition that explores male youth identity in mainstream and sub-cultural contexts; from the high-street through to the sports arena, through to heavy metal fanaticism.

 

Featuring artworks by both male and female artists working across a range of media, the exhibition addresses shifts in identity through tropes of fashion, attitude, and social group behaviours. The exhibtion emphasizes how specific historical and cultural influences have played a part in the construction and de-construction of these identities. The effects of war in the early twentieth century and the pressures of unemployment in our present day are examples that have been widely understood to have de-stabilised the confidences of masculinity and male stereotype.

 

Often the very terms of 'male identity' remain undeclared and shy of self-awareness by men themselves. The exhibition features practices that explore this problem of repreenting the male subject, while also addressing new forms of gender expression in a changing cultural landscape.

 

Artists include: Doug Dubois, Gillian Wearing, Collier Schorr, Richard Hawkins, Seamus Harahan, Iain Hetherington.

 

Curated by Matt Packer at the Glucksman