An exhibition in Vienna probes our attitude towards nudity – people in the West have become accustomed to the naked
female form, but male nudes can still shock. Before the show opened, the museum even covered up parts of its own posters, saying they had caused public outrage. Five naked male statues on a pedestal confront you as you enter the new exhibition at the Leopold Museum.
The earliest is Ancient Egyptian, and the most recent a figure based on a shopping mannequin. Tobias Natter, the director of the Leopold Museum, says the opening display is a “walk through 5,000 years of history”.
“You have an old Egyptian nude, which is very unusual for Egyptian art, you have Roman art, you have Rodin from the 19th and 20th Century, to a postmodern statue. It tells the visitor the male nude in art has a very long tradition,” he says.
The exhibition features a diverse range of styles, from paintings by Peter Paul Rubens, Paul Cezanne, Edvard Munch and the expressionist artist Egon Schiele, to more modern and sexually explicit works by the US photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and the London-based artists Gilbert and George.
There are images of erect penises, and of anuses.
Natter says the museum is breaking new ground.
How wonderful!!!!
GASP! I’m appalled. (Where to I get tickets?)
I went to a very interesting exhibit a few years ago in which they showed how Robert Maplethorpe used classic forms in the composition of his photographs.
cool and wonderful
Straight males are so afraid of seeing another nude male’s penis. They are afraid they will pop a boner.
Fabulous? Is five all? Can i see more naked men if I ask?
Regrettably, I spend more time commenting on these “Daily Squirts” than I actually do squirting daily. Sigh…this Soldier needs a regular group sex therapy to counter this situation.
I spent 21 years in the military and I muatr say, in the swowers the other men always looked at our equiment… but very seldom get a hard on.. and those that did were the gay ones..