Davide Meneghello, Notes on a Masculine Image, 2020

His work uses photography, text, and installation to investigate historical representations of queerness, with a particular focus on the codification of queer desire and the construction of gay identity. In Notes on a Masculine Image, Meneghello utilises a variety of print formats to reflect upon the hidden past of homoerotic imagery in photographic archives, exploring the competing notions of display and concealment as found in a group of vintage Super 8 bodybuilding films. Eschewing a traditional model for this project, the edition is comprised of three main elements: a screw-bound book block that animates a sequence of images printed by Meneghello from the original 8mm films, which the reader is welcome to dismantle, edit and reconstruct; a triptych of prints that describe tenderly a moment of ecstatic exertion; and a booklet curated by the artist (with contributions from Sean Burns, Alastair Curtis, and Lalu Delbracio) that orbits and examines perceived notions of masculinity. Shot under the baking heat of the California sun, Meneghello’s leading men watch, and are watched. In the text Thinly Veiled Soft Porn, writer Sean Burns observes that “photographs and films from physical culture have been a conduit for homosexual desire forever. The men in Notes on a Masculine Image exhibit the profits of their labour – a sort of hyperbolic, old-fashioned and greasy muscle. The prints skirt the fine line between outright pornography and the impotent appreciation of physical prowess.”