Bum Revisited

Back in the old days in 2009, when I was still in art school I made one of my funniest works ever. I placed a tiny paper umbrella in between a boyfriends buttocks. Unfortunately, I lost the original digital photo and was left with only a very low-res copy. In the summer of 2018 I decided to re-do this project, since friends and colleages kept referring to it, even after all those years. But this time I’d be using more umbrellas, more glitter and more kitsch.

Above: the original 2009 photo in super low-res image quality

What started as an innocent, fun project quickly became rather policital due to the discomfort I started noticing of most straight men when confronted with male nudity. We’re used to female nudity being all around us, but apparently a naked male bum is a reason to panic for a lot of heterosexual men.

All bums in this project are (identifying as) male, since I believe male nudity is also very underrepresented in the arts and it’s time for a change.

The project is still ongoing, I am still looking for more models of colour to make the final selection as diverse as possible.