This selection of artworks from MOCA’s permanent collection examined and deconstructed male identity through the work of John Ahearn, Diane Arbus, Larry Clark, Llyn Foulkes, Nan Goldin, Todd Gray, Roy Lichtenstein, Catherine Opie, Richard Prince, Garry Winogrand, and others. Man's World: Selections from the Permanent Collection was neither didactic nor polemical, instead critically outlining the shifting parameters of masculinity in recent and contemporary culture. Todd Gray’s Goofy (1993), for example, presented a grainy silhouette of the titular Disney character standing neutrally with his arms at his sides, interrogating the capacity of stance, color, and framing to elicit gendered and racial associations. Man’s World was presented at MOCA Grand Avenue as part of a broader initiative to highlight the museum’s permanent collection.
Man's World: Selections from the Permanent Collection was organized by Russell Ferguson, Editor, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.