Gender Politics in Nir Hod’s Art

12.01.2023
19:00 - 20:30
Cluster Gender (HUK), DP Interdisziplinäre Geschlechterstudien
Heinrichstraße 26/2, Raum 09.23

The topic of Anat Gilboa’s talk is Nir Hod (1970–), a multi-media Jewish-Israeli artist, based in New York city. Hod’s art has become synonymous with painstakingly realistic images, combined with provocative iconography. As the artist himself explains, he has been fascinated with dichotomies such as beauty versus evil or naiveté versus experience.

Nir Hod’s paintings obtain a queer aesthetics, among them numerous self-portraits in trans-gender appearances, gender-bending depictions of himself as a small girlish boy smoking, as well as Chassidic Jew kissing a nun.

In the talk Anat Gilboa will argue that Hod’s paintings are not a sheer act of rebellion as previous critics believed. By using gender politics, Hod deconstructs cultural boundaries, offering new meaning to otherwise well-established norms.

To conclude, Nir Hod employs gender politics in his art, referring to transgressed boundaries, which are mostly hidden, yet being an integral part of human life.