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Naked men to display assets at Musée d’Orsay

Visitors to the famous Musée d'Orsay in Paris will be able to see art stripped down to its bare bones when a new controversial exhibition goes on display later this month featuring hundreds of naked men.

Published: 11 September 2013 08:59 CEST

Naked men to display assets at Musée d'Orsay

The Musee d'Orsay set to host a controversial exhibition featuring male nudes. (Screengrab from www.Musée-orsay.fr)

The glory of the male form is the focus of Paris's Musee d'Orsay programme this autumn, with hundreds of naked men waiting to adorn its illustrious walls: all in the name of art, of course.

The "Masculin/Masculin" exhibition will exhibit 200 works about male nudes from as far back as 1800, and the art crowd in the French capital is already buzzing about the "out of favour" male physique finally going on show in one of the world's greatest museums.

For Guy Cogeval, the Orsay's president, the subject was overdue for some real exposure. "I've wanted to explore this theme for a long time, since I was director of the Musee des Beaux-Arts in Montreal 15 years ago. I suggested doing it but it was explained to me that it would be frowned upon," he said.

(Screengrab from www.Musée-orsay.fr)

Cogeval said he had "already received quite a few calls to find out what it was all about," as he put the finishing touches to the exhibition before doors open on September 24.

Inspired by Vienna's Leopold Museum, which held a male nudes exhibition in autumn 2012, Cogeval was keen to emphasise that just 20 of the same works would be put on display in his own.

But the Orsay programme will include one artwork that did not go down well in Vienna, even though it was only used to advertise the event: French duo Pierre & Gilles' "Vive La France" from 2006, which depicts three football players with their manhoods proudly displayed.

The advert caused such consternation in the Austrian capital that the offending areas had to be covered by a red rectangle.

SEE ALSO: Musee d'Orsay 'kicks out family for smelling bad'

The museum has opted for a more demure work by Pierre & Gilles as one of the adverts to highlight the current exhibition on the Paris metro, a portrait of the Greek god Mercury, portrayed from behind, wearing only a helmet.

"Masculin/Masculin" will feature painting, sculpture, and "a lot of photography", Cogeval said, as "one of our themes is the homoerotic, which is a thread throughout the exhibition".

"The first big artists who were openly gay were generally photographers," he explained, citing 19th century gay pioneers Baron Wilhelm von Gloeden, a German who worked mainly in Italy, and the American Fred Holland Day.

The male nude, Cogeval believes, is "no longer possible to ignore", and the Orsay programme features many staunchly heterosexual artists such as Angel Zarraga, Paul Flandrin, Jacques-Louis David and Anne Louis Girodet celebrating men at their most natural.

"It's male beauty in all its glory," he said.

The museum's director is open about the possibility for controversy, and laughs as he says he "hopes" conservative family-values groups stage protests against the exhibit.

"We hadn't thought about it but there could be some reaction," he said.

"Among those groups that protested gay marriage and who we saw really overdoing it on the streets, there will probably be people who aren't very happy that we're doing an exhibition like this."

The autumn programme was planned far in advance of the angry protests that stole headlines in France earlier this year, and "Masculin/Masculin" is intended to make people think, "to amuse them and to surprise them", and not to push an agenda, Cogeval said. "It's not political."

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African-born director's new vision for Berlin cultural magnet

The “Haus der Kulturen der Welt” (House of World Cultures), or HKW, was built by the Americans in 1956 during the Cold War for propaganda purposes, at a time when Germany was still divided.

New director Ndikung said it had been located “strategically” so that people on the other side of the Berlin Wall, in the then-communist East, could see it.

This was “representing freedom” but “from the Western perspective”, the 46-year-old told AFP.

Now Ndikung, born in Cameroon before coming to study in Germany 26 years ago, wants to transform it into a place filled with “different cultures of the world”.

The centre, by the river Spree, is known locally as the “pregnant oyster” due to its sweeping, curved roof. It does not have its own collections but is home to exhibition rooms and a 1,000-seat auditorium.

It reopened in June after renovations, and Ndikung’s first project “Quilombismo” fits in with his aims of expanding the centre’s offerings.

The exhibition takes its name from the Brazilian term “Quilombo”, referring to the communities formed in the 17th century by African slaves, who fled to remote parts of the South American country.

Throughout the summer, there will also be performances, concerts, films, discussions and an exhibition of contemporary art from post-colonial societies across Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania.

‘Rethink the space’

“We have been trying to… rethink the space. We invited artists to paint walls… even the floor,” Ndikung said.

And part of the “Quilombismo” exhibition can be found glued to the floor -African braids laced together, a symbol of liberation for black people, which was created by Zimbabwean artist Nontsikelelo Mutiti.

According to Ndikung, African slaves on plantations sometimes plaited their hair in certain ways as a kind of coded message to those seeking to escape, showing them which direction to head.

READ ALSO: Germany hands back looted artefacts to Nigeria

His quest for aestheticism is reflected in his appearance: with a colourful suit and headgear, as well as huge rings on his fingers, he rarely goes unnoticed.

During his interview with AFP, Ndikung was wearing a green scarf and cap, a blue-ish jacket and big, sky-blue shoes.

With a doctorate in medical biology, he used to work as an engineer before devoting himself to art.

In 2010, he founded the Savvy Gallery in Berlin, bringing together art from the West and elsewhere, and in 2017 was one of the curators of Documenta, a prestigious contemporary art event in the German city of Kassel.

Convinced of the belief that history “has been written by a particular type of people, mostly white and men,” Ndikung has had all the rooms in the HKW renamed after women.

These are figures who have “done something important in the advancement of the world” but were “erased” from history, he added. Among them is Frenchwoman Paulette Nardal, born in Martinique in 1896.

She helped inspire the creation of the “negritude” movement, which aimed to develop black literary consciousness, and was the first black woman to study at the Sorbonne in Paris.

Reassessing history

Ndikung’s appointment at the HKW comes as awareness grows in Germany about its colonial past, which has long been overshadowed by the atrocities committed during the era of Adolf Hitler’s Nazis.

Berlin has in recent years started returning looted objects to African countries which it occupied in the early 20th century — Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Namibia and Cameroon.

“It’s long overdue,” said Ndikung.

He was born in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, into an anglophone family.

The country is majority francophone but also home to an anglophone minority and has faced deadly unrest in English-speaking areas, where armed insurgents are fighting to establish an independent homeland.

One of his dreams is to open a museum in Cameroon “bringing together historical and contemporary objects” from different countries, he said.

He would love to locate it in Bamenda, the capital of Cameroon’s restive Northwest region.

“But there is a war in Bamenda, so I can’t,” he says.

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