Jerome AB

Masculine Ken on the Entertainment, 2017

_was a social experiment presented as a durational performance during Red Meal by Jen Monroe on April 22-23, 2017 in the Financial District of Manhattan.

Vocals by Glasser, cello played by YoungGun Lee

Masculine Ken attends a private dinner party not as a guest, but as the show.

This performance was inspired by the words of Leon F. Litwack — “The photographs stretch our credulity, even numb our minds and senses to the full extent…but they must be examined if we are to understand how normal men and women could live with, participate in, and defend such atrocities, even reinterpret them so they would not see themselves or be perceived as less than civilized…Few had any ethical qualms about their actions.”

#MASCULINEKEN is an ongoing performative series featuring an expressionless humanoid character of unintelligible African origins portrayed by Jerome AB and extensions thereof, all dubbed Masculine Ken. In these pieces, Masculine Ken observes and confronts various psychological defense mechanisms, processes and falsified intrapersonal realities defined by (in)human(e) exchanges through movement and visual audio manipulation.

Photography by Steven Acres and Walter Wlodarczyk