Paintings of naked men line the walls. The subjects are arranged in various poses: in one portrait, a man looks confidently at the camera, hands planted on his hips while in another, two companions unabashedly look at each other.
Titled “Belly,” the showcase by Joan Linder—hosted at Rivalry Projects from Jan. 12 to Feb. 23—transposes the lens through which females are objectified onto men by positioning them in suggestive and vulnerable poses. One piece in particular, “All Fours,” shows a man bent over on all fours, alluding to the most common sexual position taken by women in pornography.
“I wanted to see if I could make paintings as a woman that were not about women as subjects,” Linder said. “I wanted to take what I learned and turn it on its head.”
While some of the subjects’ faces are shown, most are kept anonymous. Only their potbellies are known to the audience.
