Finn Koene

There is a particular distance that operates between a man and the world— a performance learned early and maintained carefully. This act is both demanded and destabilized within the city – a space where the male archetype is simultaneously reinforced and exposed.

 Exposed examines the performativity of adolescent men, drawing on personal observations and cultural shifts—from the dominance-driven norms of high school years to today's political climate marked by figures like Donald Trump and the rise of masculinity influencers championing a narrow "real man" ideal.

 The young men portrayed move between inherited scripts and versions of themselves still being formed. At times, the performance loosens –– a body that has, briefly, nobody to perform to.  These photographs do not mock performance; they observe it. Gathering fragments of a system men inhabit — and of how they move with, and rarely against, its demands. How do men grow up today — and what has changed?