Bum Revisited

Multiple nude models, umbrellas, glitter, paper pineapples and a lot of fun. 2018-ongoing

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.

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.

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

Below: a selection of bums. The models prefer to stay anonymous.