Middle man
The year is 1980. As one man and six women prepare themselves for their portrait, there can be only one natural formation. The man checks: yes, three on the right, three on the left. It is a tale as old as time. Settling into the middle, a novel feeling arises. Once the protagonist of the photo, he feels himself suddenly enveloped by those around him. Slowly he slips away.
In Erik Kessels’s and Karel de Mulder’s MAN (2025), a curious visual pattern recurs. Across each spread, a photo: one man, flanked by an equal number of women on either side. Jousting for centre stage, he is instead subsumed into warped obsolescence, while the women beside him are smiling, unaware of the transfer of our attentions. This dynamic is compiled hundreds of times by Kessels and Mulder, but all 378 instances are vernacular. These anonymous subjects, sourced from family photos or local archives, are not homogenous in any way apart from their stance. Is the pose intentional, habitual or natural? As gender relations progress and mutate, will the centred man become less commonplace in group photography, or is he eternal? Kessels and Mulder encourage the reader to probe these questions whilst enjoying the visual farce. .
