“How long will I continue to play the game of mastery of the false self? When will the performance end? I long for that.”
—Lyle Ashton Harris
Lyle Ashton Harris' diverse oeuvre investigates preconceptions regarding queerness, blackness, celebrity, history, and self-identity. These photogravures draw from Harris' Billie, Boxers, Better Days series of performative self-portraits, ranging from portrayals of jazz singer Billie Holiday and a bloodied boxer, to layered multiple exposures that evoke the ambivalent "negrophilia" of modernism through dynamic and visually jarring scenes.
