On Firday, April 30th 2010 The Art Gallery of Calgary had an Opening Reception for new exhibit called Mixed Signals: Artists Consider Masculinity in Sports. This is an exhibition about contemporary art that deals with the subject of the male athlete. This particular artistic theme has become increasingly prevalent during the past several years, building upon several decades of discourse about identity and gender. Including artists ranging from such well-known individuals as Matthew Barney, Catherine Opie, Collier Schorr, and Sam Taylor-Wood to emerging talents such as Shaun El C. Leonardo and Joe Sola, Mixed Signals demonstrates that the male athlete is a far more ambiguous, polyvalent figure in our collective cultural imagination than ever before. Using elements of wit, sarcasm, and controversy, these artists challenge cultural assumptions that gender is ever natural or innate. Instead, they emphasize the many ways masculinity is always performed, coded, and socially constructed, perhaps even more so in the spectacular, media-saturated field of sports.
Mixed Signals: Artists Consider Masculinity in Sports is a traveling exhibition organized and circulated by iCI (Independent Curators International), New York, curated by Christopher Bedford.
You can see this amazing exhibition at The AGC. For more info, please check the website: www.artgallerycalgary.org