Galerie Tanja Wagner is pleased to present Male Nudes – Female Desires with photographs by Jen Davis, Nina Hoffmann, Lina Scheynius and Paula Winkler.
How do today’s young women look at men, naked men? How does their desire look like? Is the female gaze different than the male gaze? Is there a different desire?
Paula Winkler started her series Exceptional Encounters – as many men as I could get by contacting men on online sex platforms under the pseudonym Renate Rost. Winkler alias Renate Rost met the men in hotel rooms to take their pictures. Looking for the men hidden behind these internet profiles she wanted to transform their sexually-coded bodies into an image. She was curious if they were willing to devote themselves to her female gaze, the camera and reveal a sexuality that might even surprise themselves.
Lina Scheynius is capturing daily scenes, travels and most of all friends and lovers. She portrays her life with a casualness and honesty that is both touching and beautiful. Gerard (2002–2006) was the first series in which she was documenting the relationship with her boy friend at the time. The photographs depict a joy- and lustful intimacy, a carefree and adventurous time between young lovers. At the same time they convey the bittersweet feeling of a long lasting summer love that is meant to end.
Next to her self-portraits, Jen Davis started constructing realities for which she asked men to stage intimate moments with her. In Fantasy No 1 she is laying in bed with a man holding her tight‚ in Mike and I she is unzipping the pants of a man with a naked torso – both pictures exclude the men’s faces.
The still frames of Webcam are predicated on the idea of a web-based relationship between the artist and ‘Alexi’, her object of desire. This fantastical relationship developed, imitating the progression of an actual physical relationship without ever meeting in real life. Unlike in a normal ‘chat’, the subject could not see Davis on the webcam. Davis would give ‘Alexi’ specific verbal directions of postures to take, and when it was to her liking, she would complete the image with her own visual response.
In her slide series Alle Lust Will Ewigkeit (All Desire Wants Eternity) Nina Hoffmann is examining the desire behind the ideal. She is encountering male antique sculptures by overlaying pictures of the naked sculptures with portraits of herself. She connects and communicates with them, which is at times hesitant, direct or even humorous. The sublime figures serve as a model to pay homage to a victorious position or to confront the erotic implication of the sculptures.
On Sunday, January 27 at 3.30 pm, Elke Buhr (co-editor in chief of Monopol Magazin) will be in conversation with the artists.
Paula Winkler born in 1980 in Berlin, lives and works in Berlin.
Lina Scheynius born in 1981 in Vänersborg, Sweden, lives and works in London.
Jen Davis born in 1978 in Akron, USA, lives and works in New York City.
Nina Hoffmann born in 1980 in Spaichingen, lives and works in Berlin.