For Huda Lutfi, visual artist and cultural historian, her ongoing exhibition “Making a man out of him” is an occasion to focus on masculinity, and how the prescribed role of the man may be equally as restrictive as the woman’s.
Stepping into the brightly-lit premises of Townhouse Gallery you are taken on an artistic journey filled with bulging muscles, motionless athletic figures and oozing virility.
“My art has always been gender-focused, and this exhibition shows how frustrated men are in pursuing a model of masculinity and virility imposed by society,” explains artist Huda Lutfi, replacing her thin glasses on her nose.
The first exhibition space within the gallery showcases a giant obelisk erect in the middle of the room. Its four sides are covered in phrases, in both Arabic and English, which encourage male virility and sexual hegemony: “Advice on how to pose like a man: sit with legs apart, put on a serious but blank look instead of looking smiley and nice like a woman,” or “Women belong to the house just like men belong to the street.” The image of a bulging bicep and a contracted fist is stuck all over the obelisk, increasing the levels of testosterone suggested by the piece.
A meter away lies the face of a mannequin entirely covered, like scales, with vignettes of everyday men. The piece is titled “City Boys.” With their chubby faces, crooked teeth or slender bodies, these men symbolize “the everyday man we pass by in the street, who is far away from the ideal of male behavior he is strongly encouraged to aim at,” explains Lutfi.
“The central security policemen in Egypt represent this frustration, they embody power but most of the time they come from underprivileged socio-economic classes and are very badly-paid,” she says, standing in front of a row of mannequin faces who wear sunglasses, the lenses of which have been replaced by a collage of blank-looking soldiers.
“Most men are average workers with difficult jobs and a small salary who have no power to subscribe to this masculine hegemonic discourse whatsoever,” continues the artist, who deliberately brought together idealistic visions of men and images of less glamorous everyday males.
Irony peppers Lutfi’s work and is particularly obvious in a piece that goes by the title “The incredible lightness of the being”–which resembles the title of writer Milan Kundera’s famous novel. In this piece, the lightness of being has been replaced by the muscular back of a body-builder frozen in an unnatural pose, against a concrete-gray background.
For Lutfi, no character is more emblematic of marketed manliness than Batman, with his plastic muscular body and covered face. In a piece titled “Imagined in the States, made in China, marketed in Egypt” the artist lined up seven rows of perfectly aligned miniature batmen. “This character is a symbol of globalized masculinity,” says Lutfi.
“Some men in other parts of the world have questioned gender separation and the fabricated idea of masculinity and virility, but the educational system in Egypt does not allow men to carry out soul searching,” Lutfi comments.
“Stripping off the garments” mesmerized the bustling crowd that attended yesterday’s opening. Behind a heavy curtain, in a small rectangular room plunged into darkness, there appears a glowing square of miniature male busts covered with stripes of white bandage. The black light above gives the impression of the glowing busts floating in the room with infinite lightness.
“This piece is central in my exhibition because it represents the purity of children, still unaware of the predefined social role they will have to play,” Lutfi explains, adding that they will have to face the issue of identity when growing up.
“Making a man out of him” is also the name of an artwork which features a line of miniature batmen fiercely protecting a naked Lorelei-like doll who is sensually lifting her elbows to her sides and playing with her thick orange hair. The message here is ironic as we contemplate the ideal of male perfection, defending with all its might the perfectness of woman’s appearance against nature.
Over the past years Huda Lutfi has been involved in artistic projects in Mali, France and Germany, and until now she has only participated in collective exhibitions in Egypt. “Making a man out of him,” Lutfi’s first solo exhibition since 2006, runs until March 17.
Townhouse Gallery (first floor)
10, Nabrawy Street, Downtown Cairo
0020 22 57 68 086
www.thetownhousegallery.com
