Bull in the Ring

2008 - Film & Video (Film & Video)
7:11 minutes (looped)

Shaun Leonardo uses his own body to communicate and portray imagery. In his film Bull in the Ring , hyper-masculine images of physicality are staged at the expense of his own physical comfort. The function of the male body has long been a signifier of self-worth and the body affirms and legitimizes feelings of control and agency over environment. In this sense Shaun “El C.” Leonardo performs two very distinct actions at once. On the one hand, he uses performance as an avenue for discussion of how men have internalized culture’s preconceived notions of how men should act and appear. And on the other hand, Leonardo’s work calls our attention to these spectacles not for their immediate content but rather as symbols of our cultural acceptance of an arbitrary and potentially irrational masculine norm.

For the past decade Shaun Leonardo’s practice has been fully engaged in the politics of race, identity and pervasive male violence in sports. A former football player himself, Leonardo explores various hyper-masculine figures, such as the sportsman or the superhero through performance, painting and drawing, creating works that seek to draw out or highlight the isolation or the violence associated with such masculine culture with a view to provide an alternative perspective and to carve out a space for healing. Formally, his practice plays with the idea of “documentation” transcending the notion through a use of video in his performance work not just to document the performances but in order to create a considered scripted video.

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