Toxic masculinity has long plagued society. Both men and women suffer from harmful ideals such as “men don’t cry” or “boys will be boys.” In their collaborative exhibit Red Delta, Reuben Bloom and Matthew Steele explore what masculinity means to them.
“We set out to take a look at what was wrong with men, thinking a lot about loneliness and isolation and violence and self-harm and where that’s coming from, and ask some questions about what it means to be a man and what are some of those outdated ideas of what a man is,” Bloom said.
The Red Delta exhibit opened on Sept. 13, but it was several years in the making.
“We had initially planned for this to happen last fall, so we’d been planning it for a year at that point, but because of COVID, we had to cancel the shows,” said Karen Howard, the director of Winthrop Galleries.
Bloom is a graduate of the Winthrop class of 2011, and this exhibit was his first return to his alma mater.
“It’s weird to be back; it feels like completing a circle,” Bloom said. “It’s an honor to be back here where things started for me.”
One of the inspirations of this exhibit was the deaths of both Bloom and Steele’s fathers.
“Part of this is trying to piece together some outdated or misconstrued ideas about masculinity and male identity, and a lot of that is wrapped out in our dads’ passing,” Bloom said.
“We’ve been through a lot of the same things, so we had a lot to talk about,” Bloom said of his collaboration with Steele. “Matt has been a really great partner in this because I don’t feel like I had all of these answers myself. I feel like we had to hit the ball back and forth to push the show forward.”
Howard said she has greatly enjoyed working with both artists.
“They’re both extremely talented men, extremely talented artists,” she said.
“It’s been wonderful to have an alum come back and show their creativity now that they’ve been out of school for a while,” Howard said about Bloom.
The Red Delta exhibit features many different types of media. The “Deadfall” pieces feature various tools wrapped in thermal blankets. “Trapdoor” is a thought-provoking photograph.
“I felt that the use of multimedia and different materials used throughout was really interesting,” said Skyler Allen, an art education major.
All of the pieces, according to the gallery sign, are “Relics of a bygone masculine ideal that have been detached from their mechanical functions or war, survival and subjugation.”
With more and more violence in the world, there has never been a better time to discuss toxic masculinity.
“There’s a really pressing issue right now, you can see the unbalanced masculinity in the world, where there’s a lot of aggression, there’s a lot of frustration, and when you’re in that state, I think you’re more easily manipulated by the forces around you,” Bloom said.
“Dysmorphia applies to everyone,” Howard said. “I think it’s really an opportune time to talk about the ideas of masculinity, what it means to be and to have masculinity.”
The Red Delta exhibit will be open until Dec. 10. Admission is free. Many of the pieces are also available for sale, which can be found in the gallery.
