EIFFEL CHONG

Immortality offers viewers nontraditional forms of viewing the male nude, which Western patriarchy has understood in conventional, male-centric ways. The depiction of the unclothed male body in art has, until the advent of the sexual revolution in the 20th century, been framed within normative discourses. The tropes are familiar: statuesque men actively posturing, eroticised women in passive poses.

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The gendered tropes of art reveal a lot about societal expectations for men to adopt roles of masculinity and invulnerability. This prejudice is navigated via the photographic works of young bodies in a state of contemplation and reverie.

 

Subjects exude a strong sense of elevated thought, beyond the drudgery of social conformity and, more importantly, the burden of mortality. The works are an extension of Eiffel’s mindfulness towards his own mortality and reverence of youth.