Vive la France, Pierre et Gilles, 2006
Mr Big, Ilse Haider, 2012
Vienna’s Leopold Museum said Friday that visitors are welcome to strip off at a special nudist night later this month and admire its popular “Nude Men” exhibition as nature intended. “As there were several requests from nudist associations we decided to give this opportunity to all lovers of the Freikoerperkultur, the Free Body Culture,” spokesman Klaus Pokorny .
“Our museum will be a clothes-free zone for one evening” on February 18th, he said.
“Nudists, naturists are welcome!” The Leopold recently extended its “Nude Men” exhibition to run until March 4th after it proved to be a major hit, helping visitor numbers at the museum rise by nearly a fifth in 2012. With interest in nudes in art usually in the female form, what the Leopold calls its “long overdue” exhibition focuses instead of artistic depictions of naked men from 1800 to the present.
Previous exhibitions on the theme of nudity have mostly been limited to female nudes. With the presentation “naked men” in the autumn of 2012 the Leopold Museum will be showing a long overdue exhibition on the diverse and changing depictions of naked men from 1800 to the present.
Thanks to loans from all over Europe, the exhibition “naked men” will offer an unprecedented overview of the depiction of male nudes. Starting with the period of Enlightenment in the 18th century, the presentation will focus mainly on the time around 1800, on tendencies of Salon Art, as well as on art around 1900 and after 1945. At the same time, the exhibition will also feature important reference works from ancient Egypt, examples of Greek vase painting and works from the Renaissance. Spanning two centuries, the presentation will show different artistic approaches to the subject, competing ideas of the ideal male model as well as changes in the concept of beauty, body image and values.
