Unmasking Masculinity for the 21st Century

By Rehema C. Barber and Larry Ossei Mensah

With Essays and Contributions by Jeff Chang, Omar López-Chahoud, Robert Paul Solomon, Anuradha Vikram, and Maurice O. Wallace 

An exhibition catalogue produced in tandem with the 2022 exhibition bearing the same title, which used artworks from the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts’ collection, along with loans from across the United States, to explore the evolution of society’s perceptions about manhood, masculinity, and identity during the last five decades. Like the exhibition, which focused on five core pillars: Coming of Age; Performing Bodies & Identities; Power, Privilege, Perspectives; Representation & Belonging; and Sports & Masculinity, the Unmasking Masculinity catalogue offers various perspectives to challenge, debunk, and reframe previously accepted and currently held beliefs about masculinity while offering expanded ways of being, seeing, and talking about identity and our shared humanity.