Masculinity is not just an identity in modern society, but a systematically produced form of power. This form reveals itself most clearly in aesthetics - but this aesthetics is not emancipatory but disciplinary. Here, art is often reduced to a visual regime of domination rather than a space for the revelation of truth.
Power, as conceptualized by Michel Foucault, is not only coercive; it also shapes bodies, desires and even imagination. This is precisely where masculinity comes in: it codes not only how to behave, but how to look and even how to feel. Hardness, size, stamina - these are not biological facts, but politically promoted aesthetic norms.
These norms are most nakedly manifested in monumental structures. Colossal statues of leaders, concrete structures that break the sky, squares that reduce the human scale... These are not just architectural choices. They are strategies of power to naturalize itself. Because greatness produces a feeling of indisputability. The bigger something is, the more unquestionable it appears.
Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of the will to power is often misunderstood: it is not just a question of wanting power, but of the imperative to make power constantly visible. Masculinity aestheticizes this imperative. Power is not only exercised; it is displayed, magnified, staged over and over again. This is why masculinity often relies not on subtlety but on exaggeration.
A critical contradiction emerges here: art is inherently open to uncertainty and plurality, whereas hegemonic masculinity perceives uncertainty as a threat. Because uncertainty dissolves the limits of control. Therefore, masculinity either instrumentalizes art or neutralizes it. Aesthetics is turned into the language of obedience, not liberation.
Judith Butler's performativity approach offers a sharp diagnosis here: masculinity is a repetitive performance. But this performance is not neutral; it is a system of norms supported by rewards and punishments. “Rough” or “imperious” masculinity becomes invisible because it is naturalized - when in fact it is a role that is constantly reproduced.
The most striking aspect of this production is masculinity's constant need to petrify itself. Stone, concrete, steel... These are not just materials, they are metaphors. The claim of immutability is a strategy to hide fragility. Because flexibility is dangerous for hegemonic masculinity: what is flexible changes direction, transforms, multiplies. Power, on the other hand, demands constancy.
This is why masculinity often constructs itself around a myth of singularity: indispensable, one body, one will. This myth is aesthetically magnified; it is politically imposed. The gigantic statues do not only represent a leader; they also say: “There is no other possibility.”
At this point, the issue is not only why masculinity is “vulgar” or “impotent”. It is how these traits are systematically rewarded, aestheticized and presented as inevitable. Masculinity is a cultural construction that presents itself as nature - and that is precisely why it is most powerful when it is not questioned.
But no aesthetic regime is absolute. Even the most colossal monuments erode over time, even the most solid structures develop cracks. These cracks are not only physical; they also appear at the level of meaning. When people begin to reinterpret the performances of masculinity imposed on them, those monumental structures begin to hollow out. Forms that were once awe-inspiring gradually turn into remnants of habit.
It is precisely at this point that art returns - but this time not in the service of power, but on the verge of its dissolution. Art recalls all that masculinity represses: fragility, hesitation, plurality, directionlessness. For the power of art lies not in glorifying a single form, but in exposing the transience of forms. This is more than an aesthetic issue, it is a political rupture.
Flexibility becomes a key concept here. For a long time, flexibility has been coded as the opposite of masculinity, when in fact it is what power fears the most. Because what is flexible cannot be captured, fixed or represented. Flexibility transforms masculinity from a monument into a process of becoming. In this process, masculinity no longer has to enlarge itself; on the contrary, it can reproduce, dissipate and reconstitute itself.
Perhaps the cracks we see today are no coincidence. The language of monumental masculinity may still speak loudly, but it is also unraveling. People don't just want to look powerful anymore; they want to be meaningful. They want to relate, not just dominate. This transformation is slow, contradictory and incomplete - but irreversible.
If this direction deepens, the masculinity of the future will establish itself not in gigantic statues, but in the small but intense moments of everyday life. It will draw its strength not from size, but from sensitivity; not from permanence, but from transformability. Then the monuments may still stand, but their meaning will dissolve. And perhaps for the first time, masculinity will experience itself not as a show of power, but as an ever-changing practice of existence.