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The Essay Podcast

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The Essay: An Informal History of the Male Nude

The Essay: An Informal History of the Male Nude: Episode 3: Gabriel Gbadamosi

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An Informal History of the Male Nude

Episode 3

Episode 3: Gabriel Gbadamosi

Gabriel Gbadamosi

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Gabriel Gbadamosi considers the meaning of the male nude in African art.

Playwright and broadcaster Gabriel Gbadamosi considers the meaning of the male nude in African art from ancient Yoruba ritual to the present day.

The male nude in Africa is a vexed, political question. So its perhaps inevitable that the writer and broadcaster, Gabriel Gbadamosi has chosen an olblique, provocative approach to the subject. Drawing on his Yoruba and Irish roots, for the third part of Men Only: An informal History of the Male Nude, he journeys from South London to Nigeria and back again slowly uncovering pleasure as well as paradox. At the beginning and at the end of his exploration he comes face to face with the phallic, trickster god, Eshu - a being at work in traditional sculpture as well as in the photography of the Brixton-based Rotimi Fani-Kayode.

Producer: Zahid Warley

First broadcast in February 2012.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Series of essays exploring the meaning of the male nude in the visual arts

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Episode 3: Gabriel Gbadamosi

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