Featuring around 130 works from the 1930s to the contemporary, The Body Observed explores how Magnum photographers have turned their lens to the body, presenting works that examine a range of subjects from identity, intimacy, sexuality and ritual, to voyeurism and performance, among others.
The exhibition explores the photographic representation of the human body (specifically in relation to the documentary photograph), considering how photographic representation both mimics and corrupts the tropes of figurative representation defined through the history of art, developing its own language through the medium’s unique position between utilitarian function and artistic application. The camera has been used to examine, gaze upon, categorise, scrutinise, and objectify the body. This exhibition proposes to look at how Magnum photographers have turned their lens to the body, presenting works that explore issues such as gaze, identity, intimacy, sexuality, voyeurism and performance, and drawing into focus the societal and cultural structures that affect the representation of the human form?
