Rethinking the male nude – an interview with Sayed Sattar Hasan
Sayed Sattar Hasan’s public art project for Rom for kunst at Oslo Central Station was recently altered after complaints from the audience to the station. As an attempt to both contextualise the project, and make public some discussions that have taken place between the artist and curator/producer Kulturbyrået Mesén, we did an interview with the artist. Read it below!
The installation «Hasansen Bench» (2020) by Sayed Sattar Hasan consist of a video and a handmade bench. Foto: Kulturbyrået Mesén
Sayed Sattar Hasan (b. 1979, UK) is an Oslo-based artist whose process-based works explore the intricacies of culture and heritage. For the video program at Rom for kunst, Hasan created two works; a handmade bench inspired by the traditional Pakistani charpai (“Hasansens Bench” (2020)), and a one minute long, looped video of the artist’s alter ego Hasansen lounging naked on the bench (“Hasansen Reclining on Bench” (2020)). Both works play with the notion of branding, and the project is a further exploration of the artist’s hybrid alter ego Hasansen.
The video refers to a nude photograph of the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen (1861-1930). In the video, Hasansen looks straights into the camera while lounging on his bench, nude but covering intimate parts. By appropriating the image of Norwegian explorer Fridjof Nansen (1861-1930), Hasansen effectively imposes himself upon Norwegian culture, raising questions around national identity and access to public space/discourse.
Nude photograph of Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen, which inspired Hasan’s project. Photo: Fridtjof Nansen/Orpheus Publishing
A conversation about masculinity
Kulturbyrået Mesén: What interests you about the photo of Fridtjof Nansen that the video is based on?
Sayed Sattar Hasan: It started from the point I decided to make a bench. I was interested in exploring the idea of Hasansen as a brand, which I then weaved into the bench. Then I literally placed Hasansen on top of it. I had previously restaged an iconic portrait of Nansen, in the guise of Hasansen, for a previous project, where my alter ego appears as a polar explorer. As the work Hasansen’s Benk developed, it seemed a logical step to reference Nansen’s nude.
Nansen’s nude photograph was a sensational revelation, when it was first published, so it was interesting to play with the imagery in a public space. I was also aware that Nansen and Hasansen’s Norwegieness is unequal. So I’m interested in the flexibility of public attitude, when I confront them with an alternative Norwegian figure, who disrupts the conventional image of what a Norwegian looks like.
Just before Christmas, after the exhibition had been up for a couple of months, Oslo Central Station landlord Bane NOR Eiendom received some complaints regarding the nudity in Hasan’s video. The video was consequently taken down and replaced with an earlier work (“Field Test Hasansens Kjelke” (2019)). This earlier work was part of “Hasansen kjelke”, a previous solo exhibition at the Intercultural Museum in Oslo (IKM). In this video, we meet Hasansen again, this time clothed, testing a handmade, hybrid object – a cross between the charpai and the traditional Norwegian sled.
KM: Why do you think the video got such strong reactions?
SSH: There are a couple of reasons which could explain the reaction towards the work. Firstly, larger society continues to have a confused relationship with the human body and despite our fascination, obsession and addiction to the body, nudity can still be controversial. The video isn’t explicit, but unusual in how the nude figure on the screen walks into the frame. It was a form of breaking the 4th wall, which shows something human, rather than being a static object. I believe the reality of this moment, can make people uncomfortable. Secondly, I think the environment affected the strength of the reaction towards the video. Oslo Central Station is a public space where the majority, if not totality, of imagery within the space relates to a form of advertising. The public artwork disrupts this continuum, as it displays images outside of conventional commercial interests. When a public artwork contrasts against the homogeneity of the space, it can seem out of place. In this sense it makes the artwork vulnerable, as an easy target for criticism and outrage – particularly in a place where people are not expecting to be confronted with challenging ideas.
KM: Do you agree with the critique and the subsequent removal of the work?
SSH: I do not agree with the critique, however I have to listen to it, as it is important for me to continually evolve my understanding of my practice and how it relates to wider society. I feel it was unnecessary to remove the work from the station, but I also acknowledge my work is not entitled to occupy a space without question.
The reclining nude is an established motive and study throughout the history of art, however it typically depicts female bodies. Critical retakes on the art canon, such as the seminal book Ways of Seeing that derived from its original BBC TV-series, have brought to the surface previously hidden ideologies in traditional Western aesthetics. One of the critiques arising from this line of questioning looks closer at the way the female nude renders “the male gaze”. In this is a dualism regarding the active, watching male versus the passive, watched female.
In Hasansen Reclining on Bench, the male figure is presented as both actively addressing the viewer while also being subjected to a certain gaze himself, making him vulnerable.
KM: What do you think about the gender aspect in the reactions?
SSH: I think interpreting the male form as a potential predator is an unhealthy precedent to set and removing the work on those grounds is problematic. The real harm of toxic masculinity can be found in the overwhelming objectification of women, which is ubiquitous in society, in our homes, screens and public spaces, and which mostly goes unchallenged. Reclining myself on the bench subverts gender norms and narratives, because I then become vulnerable in a way that disrupts hypermasculinity. Does this mean we should ban nudity in its entirety throughout public space, for both men and women, or do we think through on how we can collectively develop conversations about the body and how we define it and empower ourselves in the process?
