“Out In Africa”
Artist Talk: Lyle Ashton Harris in conversation with Jonathan David Katz
June 20th; 6-8 PM at The Leslie-Lohman Museum.
Lyle Ashton Harris was born and raised in New York City and Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. For more than two decades, Harris has cultivated a diverse artistic practice ranging from photographic media, collage, installation and performance.
Harris’ work explores the conflation between narratives of the personal and the political. In probing these social boundaries, Harris reexamines the ways that ethnicity, desire and masculinity operate in the broader social and cultural dynamic. In his Ghana series, Harris intersects these abiding themes along with contemporary globalization and cosmopolitanism within modern day Ghana.
His recent photos and collages are colorful quests uprooting the confluence between western and Ghanaian culture. Known for his self-portraits and usage of pop culture icons, Harris inhabits and teases our notions of perception. Ranging from Michael Jackson to Billie Holiday and Silvio Berlusconi to Zinedine Zidane, Harris signifies cultural cursors in an effort to reorient the familiar to the extraordinary.
In 2010 Gregory R. Miller & Co. published Excessive Exposure. The publication is the definitive documentation of Harris’ “Chocolate-Colored” portraits made with a large-format Polaroid camera over the past ten years.
His work has been shown internationally, including exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Guggenheim Museum, and the 52nd Venice Biennale. Harris’ commissioned work is also featured in a wide range of publications, including The New York Times Magazine and the New Yorker. He currently divides his time between New York and Accra, Ghana.
Lyle Ashton Harris is an associate professor at New York University.
This lecture is part of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art Lecture Series in collaboration with the Visual Studies Department at University at Buffalo.
There is a suggested donation of $10. Admission is free for museum members.
Please RSVP to info@leslielohman.org.
http://www.lyleashtonharris.com/
26 Wooster Street, New York, NY 10013
(212) 431-2609 | (212) 431-2666 Fax
Tuesday-Saturday 12-6 PM
