Beyond the Manosphere
Masculinities Today
Exhibition — Apr 17 until Aug 2, 2026
What does it mean to be a man today? This question has become increasingly urgent with the rise of the ‘manosphere’, a loose network of online spaces where a brash, misogynistic masculinity is asserted that, to many, feels threatening. Fueled by the spread of Trumpism, this brand of masculinity has become increasingly mainstream. The artworks in Beyond the Manosphere – Masculinities Today explore masculinity as an agent and performance of power – but also as a lived reality that can be conflicting, banal, unsteady, and tender. They approach masculinity as a broad and layered phenomenon, beyond dominant clichés.
Participating artists
The exhibition brings together an intergenerational group of 35 artists. Works made between the 1960s to the 1990s by artists including Miguel-Ángel Cárdenas, Eduardo Paolozzi, Tetsumi Kudo, Melle, Hans Eijkelboom, Paul McCarthy & Mike Kelley, Julio Galán, Pope.L, Sophie Calle, and Sylvie Fleury place masculinity within the broader contexts of modernity, postwar consumerism, industrialization, and psychoanalysis.
More recent and new works by artists such as Arlette, EMIRHAKIN, Hamishi Farah, Solomon Garçon, Sven Gex, Jasmine Gregory, Zhana Ivanova, Basir Mahmood, Reba Maybury, Marlie Mul, Sands Murray-Wassink, Paul Pfeiffer, Sara Sadik, P. Staff, Diamond Stingily, SoiL Thornton, Salman Toor, Amanda van Hesteren, Alex Vivian, Bruno Zhu, and Selina Zürrer. They approach masculinity from the perspectives of intimacy, queerness, labor, race, class, fetishization, vulnerability, and popular culture . Across these works, masculinity appears not as a stable or unified identity but as a contested field of representations, gestures, desires, and contradictions. Dominance and aggression coexist with fragility and banality; control with exposure; fantasy with failure.
New works and performance
A number of works have been created especially for the exhibition. Reba Maybury shifts power relations in a work based on Leo Gestel’s Reclining Nude (1910). Jasmine Gregory’s new work from the Investment Piece series underscores how wealth continues to be framed as a white and male privilege. Sven Gex examines how contemporary culture shapes new templates of masculinity by creating “characters” derived from influencers, content creators, celebrities, and actors. Hamishi Farah’s new portrait of Wolfgang Tillmans reflects on the artist as a prototype of a new, successful masculinity that emerged in the 2000s. SoiL Thornton’s Husband Chair (named after the chairs on which men are invited to wait while their wives shop), an inflatable object designed to block a passageway, is being created site-specifically for the Stedelijk.
For Beyond the Manosphere, Zhana Ivanova is developing a new performance in which she examines how masculinity is suggested and assumed through gestures, postures and movements. Performances will take place on opening night, and on April 18, May 9, May 10, and June 13, and June 14.
Dig deeper
Publication
A publication will accompany the exhibition, featuring contributions from Hannah Black, Judith Butler, Asa Seresin, and Maurits de Bruijn, among others. Published by Bierke, the Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, it is available in English and German. Retail price: € 34.95
Audio tour
For the audio tour, Simon(e) van Saarloos, Maurits de Bruijn, and Lilian Stolk, Sjef van Beers, and Margarita Osipian of The Hmm offer their perspectives on several works.
Credits
Images:
1. Hans Eijkelboom, from the De ideale man series (detail), 1977–1982. Collection Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
2. Amanda van Hesteren, I Want to go Higher (video still), 2023. © Amanda van Hesteren. Produced by Amanda van Hesteren & Sky Verbeek. Courtesy Amanda van Hesteren
3. Melle, Tuin met granaatappel, 1975, collection Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
4. Sands Murray-Wassink, Violence and Vulgarity (Casual is the New Serious), 2018. Courtesy of Sands Murray-Wassink and diez, Amsterdam
5. Solomon Garçon, Untitled (hand), 2024. Courtesy of the artist and 243 Luz, Margate
6. Sara Sadik, Khtobtogone (video still), 2021. Commissioned by Centre national des arts plastiques (CNAP)
7. Hans Eijkelboom, from the De ideale man series (detail), 1977–1982. Collection Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
The exhibition Beyond the Manosphere – Masculinities Today is organized by the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and curated by Melanie Bühler, in collaboration with the Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, Switzerland, where the exhibition will travel.
Exhibition partner: Het Cultuurfonds
