According to the logic of binary oppositions, the man, by creating or colonising the woman for himself, also constructs himself in relation to her, or more precisely, over her. If female beauty, femininity, or the appearance and spectacle of the woman is a construction – shaped and upheld by men – then the spectacle of a man must also be called into question and made the subject of research. In Alexandru, Zsuzsi Simon casts a female gaze on the construction of masculinity and its associated stereotypes.
Through her subversive process, Simon inverts the remake of Jeff Wall's famous Picture for Women (1979). Although Wall had already deconstructed the traditional male-female, creator-model roles, Simon’s picture displays the man floating in the aura of his self-conscious masculinity – as the muse of a female creator. The first phase of a larger research project into masculinity, Alexandru studies men through the analytical, critical, yet admiring gaze of a woman, employing conflicting metaphors of masculinity, strength, manliness, violence and vulnerability. The project shows the image of a man formed by himself – what he is proud of, what he wants, what he hides – as well how he is seen by a woman.
