Dialogues of Art Historians and Artists is a series of meetings led by faculty members of the Institute of Art History, Adam Mickiewicz University and invited artists. The topics of individual meetings, referencing the exhibitions held in the Arsenał Municipal Gallery, are the starting point for conversations about art, exhibitions and criticism. Of prime importance here is the juxtaposition of two perspectives of seeing, understanding and talking about art – of art historians and artists. This time the interlocutors will be: Dr Paweł Leszkowicz (art historian, Institute of Art History, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań) and Dorota Nieznalska (visual artist, Academy of Fine Arts, Gdańsk).

The male nude is an erotic and politically undermined area. The full male nude remains controversial and repressed. The paradoxical status of the male nude lies in the fact that it is both a symbol of power and opposition to it. It is a very official genre - a public sculpture, and at the same time an intimate, obscene and often censored object. That is why male nudes manifest both nationalist pride and anarchist protest, painful nakedness and sensual pleasure. The discussion will focus on the political, nationalist and sexual connotations of the male nude, especially in two national contexts: Polish and Finnish. Both Dorota Nieznalska as an artist and Paweł Leszkowicz as an art historian and curator have addressed in the two countries issues of representation of masculinity, nation, power, and history. The discussion therefore offers both a current and comparative perspective on this sensitive topic, which is crucial for the formation of nationalisms and sexuality.

a dialogue between: Paweł Leszkowicz and Dorota Nieznalska

organisers: Arsenał Municipal Gallery, Institute of Art History, Adam Mickiewicz University