Tuesday 6 March 2001
A major new photographic exhibition of male nudes by acclaimed celebrity photographer Rankin launches on Friday March 9 - in support of the everyman campaign to raise awareness of prostate and testicular cancer.
Set to challenge taboos and attitudes to nudity, the Male Nudes by Rankin exhibitionis on view to the public at the Proud Galleries in London's Buckingham Street from March 10 to April 1.
Part of the proceeds from the exhibition and related book will go to The Institute of Cancer Research’s everyman campaign - established three years ago to address the urgent need for research into male cancers and, crucially, to raise public awareness of testicular and prostate cancer.
Clare Moynihan, medical sociologist at The Institute of Cancer Research, comments: "The everyman campaign has done a great deal to help break down some of the taboos about male cancers but men are still reluctant to discuss their health and seek medical advice. To have the support of a photographer of Rankin’s calibre through this major exhibition, is a tremendous boost to the campaign’s ongoing efforts."
The exhibition is described as a 'second chapter' to Rankin’s high profile 1999 exhibition of female Nudes in which subjects were invited to provide their own suggestions of how they should be photographed. The Male Nudes project raises the stakes and features a diverse range of ideas including everything from a man dressed as Batman to a nude self-portrait of the artist.
Says Rankin: "While the moral and aesthetic acceptability of a naked female is almost unchallenged, the male form still languishes in the double standards of Victorian England.
"This was one of the main reasons for the book and exhibition’s association with the everyman campaign which deals with these exact problems in order to raise awareness of male cancers. It is a testimony to how damaging such unchallenged hang-ups can be".
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For further information contact The Institute of Cancer Research press office,
Tel: 0171 970 6030 or email: [email protected]
Notes to Editors:
Testicular cancer is the most common cancer in young men aged 20-35 and the incidence has risen by 70 per cent in the last 20 years. If it is caught early, it is curable in more than 90 per cent of cases. Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in men and 19,500 new cases are diagnosed each year. Nearly 10,000 men each year will die from the disease.
everyman is The Institute of Cancer Research’s campaign to raise awareness of and funding for research into male cancers. The Institute has recently opened the UK’s first dedicated Male Cancer Research Centre where research is being carried out into many different aspects of male cancers, including: gene isolation, dietary factors, hereditary risks and the development of better treatments leading to more men surviving and suffering fewer side effects.
The Institute of Cancer Research will auction three of the Rankin Male Nudes prints on-line at its
everyman website Male Nudes by Rankin, The Exhibition is at the Proud Galleries from March 10 – April 1. Male Nudes by Rankin, The Book, is published by Vision On April 13 (RRP £19.99) and is availableat 1 25 per cent discount on the Vision On website
www.visiononpublishing.com The shooting of the photographs for the exhibition has been filmed for a Channel 5 documentary Raw Nudes, to be broadcast on March 22.