Forbes interviews Yushi Li on the male nude
Yushi Li, The Feast, 2020.
“The male nude was the ideal and principal subject in art in ancient Greece and early renaissance art, since the early 19th century, the female nude started becoming the most prevalent subject in art. Unlike the male nude, which is often perceived as an autonomous subject, the female nude is normally presented in a passive way. I think in my work, I try to present men in a different way to question this masculine and feminine opposition, and cast the gaze onto the male body, which can be equally eroticized and desired as the female body.” Yushi Li.
Yushi Li’s work is currently in the seminal exhibition Nude at Fotografiska in New york.
The Feast, outside
2020
Analogue, hand printed, signed by artist on verso UNFRAMED
Image size: 25.7cmHx32.7cmW
Print size: 30.5cmHx38.2cmW
Edition of 30
Li’s image The Nightmare is strikingly similar to Allen Jones’s 1969 sculpture Table, in which a female mannequin is bent over and used as a seat – a pointed reference to the casual use of female bodies for the benefit of a male artist? Yushi Li says “I am both the violator who tries to invade their private space and also the desiring object who participates in their vulnerability”.
The Nightmare
2019
Hand printed c-type print UNFRAMED
Image Size: 106cmHx127cmW
Print Size: 106cmHx127cmW
Edition of 3
Read the full article by Grace Banks here.
The Dream of the Fisherwoman
2018
Analogue c-print UNFRAMED
Image size: 25cmHx30cmW
Print size: 35cmHx40cmW
Edition of 30
The Artist Portrait (Collector)
2019
C-type print
Image Size: 10cmH x 13cmW
Print Size: 15cmH x 20cmW
Edition / 15