At The FLAG Art Foundation, the new group exhibition S-Curve proves that the human body is less a fixed structure and more a fluid playground of “surprise and invention.”
Spanning from the 18th century to the cutting edge of the present day, S-Curve reimagines the art historical trope of the body in repose. For art lovers, the exhibition moves beyond codified and “standardized” figures found in old textbooks, and highlights queer artists who treat the body as a gateway to surreal forms and gender-fluid subjectivities.
From the classic reclining nude to contemporary works that blur the line between motion and stasis, S-Curve underscores the elasticity of identity. It’s a vivid reminder that queer bodies have always resisted being “fixed” in time, and offers a bold, new geometry for the future of figurative art. This comes to life through the artwork of Frank Benson (b. 1976), Adriel Visoto (b. 1987), Samuel Fosso (b. 1962), Sadao Hasegawa (1945-1999), Paul Cadmus (1904-1999) and more.
Why S-Curve is a must-see for the queer art community:
Frank Benson – Juliana, 2015
A Brooklyn-based contemporary sculptor renowned for blending classical figurative traditions with cutting-edge 3D scanning and digital modeling, Benson earned his BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art (1998) and his MFA from UCLA (2003), where he studied under artist Charles Ray. The sculpture Juliana is a life-sized, hyper-real portrait of the artist, poet, and DJ Juliana Huxtable. It gained widespread international attention when it was featured in the 2015 New Museum Triennial, Surround Audience.
Adriel Visoto – Little Nap III, 2025
Adriel Visoto is a Brazilian artist known for his small-scale, confessional oil paintings. His work often translates private, autobiographical moments into cinematic vignettes that feel both deeply personal and universally relatable. Part of his ongoing exploration of domesticity and the Sunday blues, this work captures a solitary figure in a state of rest.
Samuel Fosso – Memoire d’un Ami (Memory of a friend), 2000
Samuel Fosso is a prominent photographer born in Cameroon and raised in Nigeria before settling in Bangui, Central African Republic. He began his career at age 13 as a commercial studio photographer. To finish leftover rolls of film, he started taking “irreverent and off-the-cuff” self-portraits, a practice that evolved into a globally recognized career in performative self-portraiture. Mémoire d’un ami (Memory of a Friend) represents a deeply personal shift in Fosso’s practice. The series is a rumination on the murder of a friend and neighbor who was killed by armed militia outside Fosso’s studio in Bangui in 1997. Unlike his highly stylized or satirical series (such as Tati or African Spirits), this body of work is noted for its vulnerability and quietude.
Paul Cadmus – Male Nude NM16, 1965
Paul Cadmus (d. 1999) was a pioneer of 20th-century figurative art, known for his social commentary and mastery of the Renaissance medium of egg tempera.
Cadmus is associated with a case of government censorship in American art history with works deeply coded with queer iconography. In The Fleet’s In! (1934), Cadmus emphasized the male physique through tight uniforms and included a figure of a blond man in a red tie offering a sailor a light, a known signal for same-sex solicitation at the time.
Cadmus’s ability to blend the idealized male form of the Old Masters with a satirical, queer perspective paved the way for modern queer artists to treat the body as a site of both political resistance and possibility.
S-Curve runs from February 12 to April 25, 2026 at The FLAG Art Foundation at 545 West 25th Street, 9th Floor, New York. (Installation photography provided by The FLAG Art Foundation and Steven Probert Studio)
Interested in being featured? Sign up to www.queerarthub.com/sign-up today to be part of our growing platform dedicated to queer artists and their work.