ABOUT    INDEX    EXHIBITIONS    INTERVIEW    ARTISTS    CONTRIBUTORS    COLLECTIBLES    IMPRINT    CONTACT    INSTAGRAM    

Beyond the Closet
The agency’s seventh exhibition, Beyond the Closet, brings together twenty artists (ten based in Switzerland and ten from abroad) to explore male nudity in contemporary art. 

Through diverse mediums such as photography, drawing, painting, and sculpture, the exhibition examines themes of vulnerability, desire, and identity, challenging current conventional notions of masculinity and the male form. By juxtaposing local and global perspectives, the show creates a dialogue that questions cultural, social, and artistic norms, inviting viewers to consider how the male body, in whole or in part, becomes, once again, both a subject of desire and a site of objectification, thereby flipping traditional gender roles in art.

Male nudity has been an essential component of artistic tradition dating back to antiquity. In ancient Greece and Rome, the works exploring this theme show strength and beauty. Sculptures like Doryphoros and Belvedere Apollo give perfect examples of physical perfection. 



The renaissance further embraced this, with artists like Michaelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci creating iconic work like David, the male figures in The Last Judgement, and The Vitruvian Man. Albeit still very shy with the size of certain body part.



As art transitioned into modernity, the representation of male nudity became less prominent. The rise of Christian morality is part of the reasons. The naked body was associated with sin and shame, drawing from the biblical story of Adam and Eve. (Talking about Adam and Eve, Masaccio did a fresco The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden on the walls of the Brancacci Chapel in the church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence in 1425. Three centuries later, the fig leaves were added to cover the genital part on the fresco. Thank goodness, the leaves were removed in 1980s during the restoration!)



Another reason one could think about is the persistent cultural taboo surrounding the male body. This stems partly from societal constructs of masculinity, which often emphasize strength. The male nude disrupts these constructs by presenting the body as soft, fragile, and exposed, challenging traditional notions of what it means to be male.


This unease also arises from the historical conflation of male nudity with homoeroticism. While female nudity has been normalized through art and consumed within heteronormative frameworks, male nudity frequently confronts viewers with discomfort or unease due to its association with queer desire and thus has been marginalized. This bias not only reinforces heteronormative standards but also erases the experiences and contributions of queer artists and audiences.



The 20th century marked a turning point as queer artists began to engage more directly with themes of desire, sexuality, and identity. Artists like David Hockney, Robert Mapplethorpe, Peter Hujar, and George Platt Lynes used male nudity as a powerful medium to explore queer desire, often confronting societal taboos head-on.



In the present time, although homosexuality is still a crime in certain parts of the world, these contemporary artists are courageously expressing themselves, exploring how queer desire intersects with race, ethnicity, age, and body type, in raw and intimate ways.

Like Freud said, what is repressed has a tendency to show up again, let’s bring the male nude to the forefront of artistic discourse once again. 

Let’s keep reimagining the possibilities of representation in the present time and celebrate it as it challenges societal norms.



Exhibiting Artists

Dabi Arnasa (Indonesian, *1997) lives and works in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Fine Art from the Institut Seni Indonesia Yogyakarta (Indonesia Institute of the Arts Yogyakarta). His artistic practice is deeply rooted in the traditional Balinese principle of rwa bhineda, which emphasizes harmony between opposing forces, exploring the interplay between the known and the unknown, the clear and the ambiguous. Through surrealistic imagery, Arnasa reconstructs dreams as experiences that are simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary, creating evocative works that blur the boundaries of perception and reality.



Arnasa’s select solo and group exhibitions include Define Comedy (currently until February 2025, ISA Art Gallery Jakarta), Wastan Titiang (2024, Yogyakarta), Fusion Flux (2023, Art Jakarta), Alt. Asia (2023, Singapore Art Week), and Rethinking Diaspora: Kalapatra of Sanggar Dewata Indonesia (2022, Sangkring Art Space, Yogyakarta).











Laura Badertscher (Swiss & Australian, *1983) lives and works in Zurich. She moved to Australia in 2010 and began her art education in 2013 at the National Art School in Sydney. In 2014, she participated in an exchange program, spending a semester at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) before returning to Australia to complete her BFA in Painting. She earned her Master of Fine Arts at the National Art School, Sydney, in 2018. At the start of 2019, after nearly a decade living in the land Down Under, she returned to Zurich and established her studio.



In 2019, Badertscher was a finalist in the Naked & Nude Art Prize Exhibition at Manning Regional Art Gallery in Taree, Australia, and  received a grant from the Fondazione Silene Giannini in 2021. Select exhibitions and fairs include Einsichten VISARTE annual show at Kupper Modern Zurich (2024), Zurich Art Weekend Exhibition at Sihlquai 253 Zurich (2024), Art Market with a-space gallery Budapest (2023) ReA! Art Fair Milano (2023), WHATZ International Contemporary Art Fair Exhibition with a-space Taiwan (2023). 

Her work is part of permanent collection of the Historisches Museum Baden.







Harald Erath (German, *1984) lives and works in Zurich. He earned his BA in Fine Arts from the Academy of Fine Arts (AdBK) Stuttgart and a Master’s degree in Fine Arts/Stage and Costume Design from the University of the Arts (KH) Berlin.

The artist has participated in numerous group exhibitions in Zurich, Stuttgart, and Berlin, including Bahay Contemporary, Kunsthalle am Hamburger Platz, and the TEDDY Award Berlin. His solo exhibitions have taken place in venues such as Galerie Meyer Riegger, Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Haus der Kallistik, Atelier Peter Nitz, CoinCoin, and Material in Zurich.











Renan Estivan (Brazilian, *1994) is a multidisciplinary designer and textile artist residing in Salvador, Bahia. The erotic tapestries follow his personal and emotional point of view on the contrasts of sexual cultures, the study of bodies, gender performance and male sexuality. It transits through various contemporary embroidery and tapestry techniques, from square stitches, with the application of pixel art to tapestry fabrics, to the electric tufting gun for artistic tapestry. Renan is inspired by Brazilian artists, such as Kennedy Bahia and Rubico, textile artists from Bahia who were part of the Tropicalismo movement in the late 60s, and Alair Gomes, a photographer with whom he shares his observant look at the male bodies that make up the landscapes of coastal cities







Santiago Figueroa (Chilean, *1984) lives and works in Santiago, Chile. 



For over two decades, Figueroa has developed a distinctive artistic language across painting, printmaking, and photography, seamlessly blending figuration and abstraction. Beyond painting, he has collaborated with musicians as a stage designer. His practice is constantly evolving, bridging disciplines and materials.



Yannick Haas (Swiss, *1998) lives and works in Geneva. He graduated from the Visual Arts program from HEAD in 2024 and currently following the Master in Visual Arts CCC Critical Curatorial Cybermedia course at the same institution. His artistic practice proposes a critical and personal vision of the homosexual community through the representation of his own body or personal elements in pictorial space.



This ceramic series began with a personal confrontation: unsolicited explicit images that he received on a dating app. By altering and recontextualizing these images, Haas disrupts their original framing, questioning the aesthetics of desire, voyeurism, and digital consumption. While digital images can exist indefinitely, their visibility is fragile, buried by algorithms, deleted, or stripped of context. Haas counters this instability by giving these fleeting images a lasting, physical presence. Through hand-painted tiles and sculptural compositions, he transforms ephemeral, algorithm-selected moments into tangible objects, resisting the endless digital flow.















Dieter Hall (Swiss, *1955) lives and works in Zurich. After completing his studies in 1983, Hall moved from Zurich to New York’s Lower East Side, where he developed his career as a self-taught painter. Influenced by the city’s cultural diversity, he connected with artists and photographers like Peter Hujar, Allen Frame, and Hans Witschi, as well as his partner, actor and director Terry Robinson.


Hall had his first solo exhibition in New York in 1987 and later exhibited in the Swiss Institute. His works have been shown regularly in Switzerland since 1988, including notable exhibitions at the Kunstmuseum Solothurn (2001–02). Hall received various art grants, including a Zurich art scholarship (1988) and a residency in Paris (1993). In 2006, he debuted his bronze figurines at Galerie Stephan Witschi in Zurich. 

His later works include bronze sculptures of Black men in intimate, preparatory moments, incorporating real objects like towels as elements of the sculpture. Hall’s work, addressing themes such as male homosexuality and the sensuality of daily life, is held in Zurich’s city and canton art collections.









Arthur Heck (French, *2000) lives and works in Zurich. He earned his Bachelor's degree from the Haute École des Arts du Rhin in 2022. In 2024, he obtained his Master’s degree from the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste with distinction from the Jury. Select solo exhibitions include at Amiamo Caffè (Zurich, 2024) and Fomo Art Space (Zurich, 2023). His recent group exhibitions include Hotel Tiger (Zurich, 2025), ZHdK (Zurich, 2024), Istituto Svizzero (Milan, 2023), and ETH Zurich (Zurich, 2023).



Heck's artistic practice explores an intimacy in crisis, tested by the upheavals of a fragile world - be they climatic, political or social. In a context where the private sphere is continually exposed to external disruptions and where reference points waver, he seeks through his images to reveal fragments of humanity in search of refuge and meaning.  It's a reinvented intimacy, both precarious and resilient, in an uncertain environment, that he's talking about. A sensitive reflection on the way in which bodies adapt, resist and seek to cohabit with a world in perpetual metamorphosis. Like the sensation of a heat that has become unbearable, of an imposed visibility, or the constant echo of political and social crises that seep into the intimate.








Richard Kranzin (German, *1990) is a filmmaker and photographer who continues to live and work in his hometown Berlin. In his early twenties, he achieved success as a fashion model before transitioning to filmmaking and photography. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Film in 2017 and has since been involved in German and international television and movie productions, while also developing his career as a photographic artist. 



Kranzin’s artistic journey is marked by the publication of several photo books: Boys in Nature (2018), Nudes (2021), and The Three of Us (2023). Since 2019, Kranzin has been part of the international queer collection BOYS! BOYS! BOYS!, joining other influential artists in this global project.


Matéo Picant Laurent (French, *1999) lives and works between Paris and Amiens. He is a draughtsman and craftsman-designer who graduated from the École des Arts Décoratifs (ENSAD) in Paris. 



Juggling between practices, he gravitates towards the arts and crafts, particularly feather-work and jewelry, where he deploys sketching as a means of articulating know-how. At the same time, he has developed a more intimate approach to drawing, focusing on nude male portraits. Navigating between references to statuary, folktales and the homosexual imaginary, his portraits flirt with the rigor of academia, nuanced with a fluid line borrowed from life sketching and fashion illustration.

Recent exhibitions include When today’s master meets tomorrow’s artisans at London Craft week (2024), The journey of life at HomoFaber Venice (2024), and alongside Pierre & Gilles and others at VerlaiNe180 Metz (2024).




Marcelot (Swiss, *1965) is a Brazilian-born artist based in Zurich. He discovered his artistic talent early and studied art education in Pindamonhangaba, Brazil, with a focus on theater. In 1990, he moved to Europe, pursuing art studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich (1991–1997), where he developed his artistic identity and exhibited extensively, focusing on objects and their symbolic meanings. 

After earning a postgraduate degree in art therapy (1997–1999), Marcelot worked as an art therapist at a psychiatric hospital in Münsterlingen, Switzerland, beginning in 2002. In 2009, he resumed his artistic career as a freelance artist, bringing a mature perspective to his work. His multidisciplinary approach draws inspiration from books, conversations, music, poetry, and media, resulting in thought-provoking projects that reflect his sensitivity to the human condition.




Antoine Medes (French, *1994) lives and works in Montreuil, Paris. He earned an Master’s degree in Fine Art from École Supérieure d’Arts et Médias, Caen.



Specializing in ceramics and drawing, Medes explores the connections between these mediums and their associations with craft, lowbrow iconography, and niche cultures influenced by underground, queer, and internet-based scenes. His diverse stylistic approach weaves personal lore with shared emotional experiences, creating narratives that invite universal interpretation. In 2021, Medes was shortlisted for the Emerige-CPGA Prize and the Novembre à Vitry painting prize.




Vladimir Miljević (Swiss, *1994) lives and works in Zurich. He graduated from the Fine Arts program at ZHdK in 2022 and earned previously another bachelor’s degree in Visual Communication in Berlin in 2019. His practice explores themes of historical memory and collective identity through installations, sculptures, and performances. He often works with sparsely but precisely arranged fragments, which carry inherent memories and meanings, gaining new significance when placed in a contemporary context.



The series Jouissance is a sculpture-like work that consists of an array of body part cut-outs, taken entirely from OnlyFans. These fragments are deconstructed and reassembled into amorphous forms that blend bodies and acts of intercourse, put together with the help of needle/ pin and beeswax, in a metal frame, a material that is a conductor of heat serving as a metaphor for the circulation of desire. The explicit sexual context recedes into abstraction, inviting a striking analysis of how desire, bodies, and even intimacy itself are transformed into consumable objects within a facade of connection. In this way, the jouissance experienced by the subject is mediated through broader structures of commodification.  

Jouissance is a term coined by the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, derived from the French word jouir. In English, it signifies not only enjoyment but also the act of orgasm. Lacan‘s concept of jouissance describes a state where pleasure reaches its limit, yet one continues to pursue it — crossing into a realm where pleasure transforms into suffering.







James Robert Morrison (Scottish, *1979) lives and works in London, UK. After graduating from Central Saint Martins in 2002, Morrison worked in the cultural sector for 17 years before resuming his art practice in 2019. Since then, he has earned significant recognition, including being shortlisted for the Bridget Riley Fellowship (2023-24) and Derwent Art Prize (2022), selection for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition (2021), and accolades like the Mervyn Metcalf Purchase Prize and a commendation at the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize. His works are held in the UK Government Art Collection, Neal Baer Collection, and private collections worldwide.



Morrison’s work reflects on his journey of discovering and accepting his sexuality, often referencing and reappropriating personal archival material, including gay porn magazines he secretly collected as a closeted teen during the homophobic climate of 1980s-90s Britain. Through drawings, paintings, and collages featuring embroidery, he blends playful experimentation with cohesive craftsmanship, creating intimate, nostalgic narratives that normalize queer identities and address the lack of positive representation he and others experienced growing up.






Daniel C. Müller (Swiss, *1994) lives and works in Zurich and Luzern. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from ZHdK in 2019 and a Master’s degree in Fine Arts from LUCA School of Arts in Brussels, Belgium. 



Müller’s practice centers on drawing, which he extends into woodcut, monotype, ceramics, sculpture, and installation. His work explores themes of darkness, chaos, and intensity, often depicting gloomy landscapes and reimagined historical war scenes that delve into the fascination with the abysmal. While themes of self-destruction emerge, they are simultaneously resisted, reflecting the precarity of existence. Müller’s work also immerses itself in queer subculture, portraying individuals in their search for identity and self-discovery.

Select exhibitions include Zentral at Kunstmuseum Luzern (2024), Cantonal Exhibition at Kunstmuseum Solothurn (2024), Impression at Kunsthaus Grenchen (2024 / 2025), Crossing Ways MMRK at Museum Basilique Nationale du Sacré-Coeur Brussels (2023).


John T.D. Murphy (American, *1990) is an American artist and life drawing instructor, lives and works in Los Angeles. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from The University of Georgia. 



Murphy’s deeply personal paintings explore themes of intimacy, adventure, and isolation within the queer community. Drawing from memory, personal snapshots, and cultural influences, he creates narrative vignettes that reflect queer identity.

The artist explains that his paintings explore themes of intimacy and isolation, as well as the space between them that encapsulates his own experiences as a queer person. Through his practice, he aims to make his feelings and memories tangible, proving, if only to himself, that these moments happened, that he felt this.


Andrea Popović (Swiss, *1993) is a Swiss artist of Balkan heritage based in Zurich. Specializing in storytelling, his artistic practice spans still images, paintings, and moving images, rooted in a lifelong passion for drawing.



Popović’s talent has garnered recognition early in his career. In 2017, while earning his degree in Animation Production from the University of Bournemouth, his diploma short film Vida won the Jury Prize for Best Animation Film at the Purbeck Short Film Competition. After working at an animation studio in London, he pursued a master’s degree in Directing Fiction at the Zurich University of Arts in 2019, where he directed the short fiction films Bele Noći and Ukopan.







Jérémy Rebord (Swiss, *1990) lives and works in Zurich. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Art Education from Zürcher Hochschule der Künste (ZHdK) in 2019, followed by a Master’s degree also in Art Education in 2022. During his studies, he enriched his practice through a semester abroad at the Faculty of Fine Arts at UPV/EHU in Bilbao, Spain. Since 2021, Rebord has served as the workshop manager at the print studio in Rote Fabrik, where he shares his expertise in printmaking. In 2023, he also became a course leader at the F+F School of Art and Design in Zurich.


Rebord’s work is known for its exploratory and often experimental approaches, reflecting deep contemplation on social and cultural themes and presented with a unique aesthetic perspective.

Select exhibitions include Nomadic Reverie at Bahay Contemporary Zurich (2024), In a Land of Hope and Dreams at Anggrek Agency Zurich (2024), Grosse Regionale at Kunstzeughaus Rapperswil-Jona (2023/2024), Jungkunst 21 at Halle 53 Winterthur (2021).












Moussa David Saleh (Lebanese & British, *1984) lives and works in London, UK. With a background in political illustration as a former cartoonist for Newsweek Europe, his work explores the tension between human formality and innate ferality, as well as serious themes such as time, death, shame, and intimacy in the social media era, all through a playful and subtly subversive lens.



Recent exhibitions include A Personal Treasure at Bow Arts, London (2024), Taste at OHSH Projects x Wönzimer, LA (2024), and Skin Deep at Studio West, London (2023), among others.





Stuart Sandford (British, *1978) lives between London, Mexico, and Los Angeles. He works across (and often combines) different media, including photography, sculpture, painting, moving image, and installation, and has pushed the boundaries of artistic expression, fearlessly investigating into themes of identity, queer culture, and the complex nature of human relationships. 



Sandford’s work has been shown in galleries and art institutions around the world such as Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit and Centre de la Photographie Geneva, it’s part of the permanent collection of the Tom of Finland Foundation in Los Angeles, and appears in many important private collections including the Sir Elton John Photography collection, the Koç Collection, and the Rennie Collection.

---

© 2023-2025 Anggrek GmbH