The masculine masquerade; masculinity and representation

Perchuk, Andrew and Elaine Posner, editors, bell hooks, Matthew Barney, Tina Barney, Lyle Ashton Harris and Keith Piper, et al.

ISBN 10: 0262161540 / ISBN 13: 9780262161541

Published by The MIT Press, Cambridge, 1995

About this Item

156p., 8.5x12 inches, profusely illustrated with the works of a number of artists, review copy with slip and sheet laid in, very good first edition in black cloth and dj. The prose contributors to this exhibition catalog -- Simon Watney, bell hooks, Glen Ligon, Steven Cohan and the editors -- draw on gay and feminist theory to "analyze the conventional and limited definition of masculinity as a social and cultural construct" (dj), then bring in race, class and other factors to expand that definition. The artists represented include Matthew and Tina Barney, Lyle Ashton Harris and Keith Piper, among others. The book includes an extensive bibliography on the arts and literature.

Seller Inventory # 84511

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The masculine masquerade; masculinity and representation
• Publisher: The MIT Press, Cambridge
• Publication Date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0262161540
• ISBN 13: 9780262161541
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included
• Seller catalogs:
  • Gay Studies
  • Photography
  • 1990S
  • Art
  • African American

About this title

Synopsis

The Masculine Masquerade explores often-ignored issues of masculinity in the visual arts as well as models and concepts of masculinity in literature, film, and the mass media. Drawing on the work of feminist and gay studies and the work being done in areas of psychology, sociology, and gender studies, the essays analyze the conventional and limited definition of masculinity as a social and cultural construct. They seek to expand that definition to include multiple masculinities and factors such as race, class, ethnicity, and object choice.

Helaine Posner, Curator, MIT List Visual Arts Center, examines masculinity in the contemporary visual arts, including the works of Matthew Barney, Mary Kelly, Lyle Ashton Harris, Clegg & Guttmann, Keith Piper, and Donald Moffett. Andrew Perchuk, independent curator and critic, focuses on the art of the immediate postwar period to investigate T. J. Clark's notion that the terminology surrounding the New York School was expressed in the language of sexual difference, with severe consequences for artists whose work could not be inserted into this narrative.

Steven Cohan, Associate Professor of English, Syracuse University, looks at postwar film in The Spy in the Gray Flannel Suit:Gender Performance and the Representation of Masculinity in North by Northwest. Harry Brod, Department of Philosophy, University of Delaware, traces the history of masculinity as masquerade, from classic conceptions of masquerade as distinctly feminine to contemporary theories of gender as performative. bell hooks, Professor of English, City College, investigates the historical definition of black male sex roles and the commodification of blackness through close readings of the films of Eddie Murphy and Spike Lee, among others. Simon Watney, writer, activist, and critic, considers the current and changing impact of AIDS on the gay male community in "Lifelike": Imagining the Bodies of People with AIDS. Finally, Glenn Ligon employs stereotypic images of black men constructed for white pleasure, drawn from 1970s pornographic magazines, and explores the possibility of recovering and transforming these images into non-racist expressions of pleasure and desire.

Distributed for the MIT List Visual Arts Center