Meaning "also" in context

Does the bold sentence mean:

1. This sexual interest in the black body in addition to what it represented on the surface, was also an aspect of expressionist primitivism.

or

2. This sexual interest in the black body like other aspects of expressionist primitivism is also another aspect of expressionist primitivism.

I think #1 is intended. Am I right?

Context:

The gay painters who made up this postwar group were likely more interested in the expressionist genre of the male nude than in a generalized shift to figuration. The homoerotic element in German expressionism, particularly in Brücke painting, is a fascinating and under-studied aspect of this direction of the avant-garde. While all of the members of the Brücke group produced portraits and woodcut prints of each other, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s are perhaps the most well known. The portraits point to the close-knit nature and the shared camaraderie of the Brücke group. Among other works, Kirchner’s painting Bathers at Moritzburg indicates the artist’s interest in the male nude, which he often depicts frontally and with a clearly delineated phallus. Kirchner also posed frontally and photographed his male African model, the circus performer “Sam,” in his Dresden studio, an indication of Kirchner’s fascination with and eroticization of the black male body as Other. This sexual interest in the black body was also an aspect of expressionist primitivism.