Male Ego, a critical work by London-based Araeen, was created during the height of the Iraq War (2003–11) and the rise and collapse of the global financial markets. Incorporating an enlarged reproduction of a cubist drawing the artist made in 1960, which foreshadows his early career in minimalism, the work is installed beneath a row of framed texts that read: ‘Infantile Male Ego is the root of all Property / Domination / Exploitation / Oppression / Violence / Evil’. Analogous to the artist’s multi-panel cruciform installations from the 1980s onwards, Male Ego simultaneously demonstrates Araeen’s observations and confrontations of hegemonic power structures throughout his career – from the geopolitical to the racial to the androcentric – and echoes sentiments of today’s ‘me too’ movement.