Winner of the 2021 HCB Award, Carolyn Drake presents MEN UNTITLED at the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, a new series of photographs exploring her relationship to myths of masculinity in American culture. Mixing symbols of virility, self‑portraits, and photographs of men “laid bare,” MEN UNTITLED functions as both introspection and documentary.
Following Knit Club (2012-2020), a subversive series on a community of women in a rural town in Mississippi, Carolyn Drake shifts her gaze towards men. In contrast to her previous work, she broadens the scope by separating the work from any specific geography. Erasing nearly all signs of place, Drake invites the viewer to look directly at the male bodies in front of the camera.
Drake’s work begins with reflections on her relationship to men, their bodies and the place society accords them. Getting closer to her subjects through collaborative portraiture, she ends up calling both the viewer’s expectations and her own perceptions into question.
