Richard Avedon's The Family at Masculinities: Liberation through Photography, Barbican Art Gallery

As the presidential election approached in the US Bicentennial year, 1976, the American photographer Richard Avedon (1923–2004, USA) set about photographing the key politicians, military men, lawmakers and captains of industry who clasped the reins of political, economic and cultural power in their hands. The resulting 69 portraits of 73 selected members of the US political establishment eventually commanded an entire issue of Rolling Stone magazine. Deploying his Deardorff 8-by-10-inch camera, Avedon photographed the likes of Henry Kissinger, George H. W. Bush, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan in his typically blunt frontal manner against a white backdrop, sheared away from any setting or prop and framed only by the black edges of the negative. Taking the form of a quasi-family album, The Family cleverly hints at the interconnected nature of the seemingly disparate professions represented – from incumbent president Gerald Ford to the founder of the United Farm Workers union, César Chávez. Indeed, it is noteworthy that not all of Avedon’s subjects were publicly elected officials: among the sitters were bankers, media trendsetters, corporate executives, publishers, union leaders and others, alluding to the confluence of forces that contribute to the shaping of the highest office in America.

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.