Karen Knorr's Gentlemen at Masculinities: Liberation through Photography, Barbican Art Gallery

Gentlemen, 1981–83, by Karen Knorr (b. 1954, Germany) is made up of 26 black-and-white photographs anchored by short texts. Taken in the opulent architectural interiors of all-male private members’ clubs near St. James Park in London, these photographs depict the club interiors – replete with portraits of past premiers and leather armchairs – as well as their members - typically besuited white men – and on several occasions also the staff who serve within. The texts that accompany the images, drawn from conversations, parliamentary records, and contemporary news reports, invite the viewer to reflect on notions of patriarchy, gender and class.

What does it mean to be a man today? The Barbican's Masculinities: Liberation through Photography considers how masculinity has been coded, performed, and socially constructed from the 1960s to the present day.