Artist Clotilde Jiménez’s Collaged Images of Bodybuilders Tell a Personal Story of Black Masculinity. See His Work Here

As galleries and art institutions around the world begin to reopen, we are spotlighting individual shows—online and IRL—that are worth your attention.

“Clotilde Jiménez: The Contest” at Mariane Ibrahim
through August 22

What the gallery says: “THE CONTEST unravels Jiménez’s own queer imagination to physicality. The works grapple with his deeply personal and once estranged relationship with his father, a bodybuilder and boxer. Jiménez adopts the boxer and bodybuilder as motifs, recalling early ideas of the body, specifically the Black male body.

Placed within each ‘pose’ or boxing ring, the large scale boxers and body builders brawl, their positions mighty, next to bronze sculptures of heads with colorful boxing headgear. He finds beauty in the color and sculptural physicality of boxing headgear and the groin protector that transforms the body into something strong, powerful and guarded.”

Why it’s worth a look: For his first solo show at star gallerist Mariane Ibrahim’s Chicago gallery, Honolulu-born, Mexico City-based artist Clotilde Jiménez is quite literally tackling notions of masculinity and Blackness.

In these works, you can really feel how the artist has infused the works with his personal understanding of what it means to be a strong man—delicate painted flowers adorn the furniture incorporated in some works, and swaths of pattern cut out and pasted onto the canvas provide another layer when juxtaposed with the shaded contours of the muscled bodies. His juxtaposition of unexpected materials and charged forms makes for images that wrestle their way in your head.

What it looks like:

Clotilde Jiménez with his sculpture, Orange Boxer (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Mariane Ibrahim.

Clotilde Jiménez, Always on Guard (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Mariane Ibrahim.

Installation view, “Clotilde Jiménez: The Contest” Courtesy of Mariane Ibrahim.

Installation view, “Clotilde Jiménez: The Contest” Courtesy of Mariane Ibrahim.

Clotilde Jiménez, Pose no. 4 (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Mariane Ibrahim.

Clotilde Jiménez, Pose no. 5 (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Mariane Ibrahim.

Clotilde Jiménez, Pose no. 6 (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Mariane Ibrahim.

Installation view, “Clotilde Jiménez: The Contest” Courtesy of Mariane Ibrahim.

Clotilde Jiménez,, Shadow Boxer (2020). Courtesy of the Artist and Mariane Ibrahim.

Installation view, “Clotilde Jiménez: The Contest” Courtesy of Mariane Ibrahim.