Myth, Mystery and Men || Archan Mukherjee & Tirthankar Guha Thakurta

“Man – what does it mean to be one? What drives a human being towards their masculinity? Is it their social location, or their free choice? How does the thin line between imposed identity and free choice fight for supremacy?How do the two interact? How do they wrestle? When does one own up to it and when does one let it go? What consequences does the society hold for ‘a man’ determined to hold on to his own idea of ‘manhood’?
In the format of fine art nudes, this work is the quest to determine the interaction between the construction and deconstruction of masculinity -the masculinity and his masculinity; the face of a man and the mask of masculinity shadowing it; the perverted pride, conflict, empathy and pathos; the footnotes from the human anatomy texts and the notions pinned to it that erupt a pride of masculinity for some, and emasculate the rest with shame; a study of the appropriation of masculinity to a strong body and an upfront confrontation of anything that doesn’t match up to it; the interaction that a man, acknowledging the coexistence of masculine and feminine energies residing in him, has with the society. This work atempts to answer such questions that words fail to address; to put up a thesis alongside its antithesis, to acknowledge contradictions that define our Myth, Mystery and Men.”