Lyle Ashton Harris, The Watering Hole, 1996 | Works on Paper

Lyle Ashton Harris' series 'The Watering Hole' (1996) draws on the metaphor of the watering hole as a place of rejuvenation, as well as a site of violence. An edition of the entire series was purchased and donated to the MoMA by Aggie Gund. He writes about the work: “[The Watering Hole] was less about [Jeffrey] Dahmer per se, but the notion of Dahmer wrath... [I] was looking at the way in which, you know, black culture gets consumed too—whether that's, let's say, Mapplethorpe, or Dahmer, or Dana Schutz, for that matter. The way in which the claiming or tapping into that currency and using the currency as a way to somehow speak without really thinking of the larger—I wanted to somehow pull back and to somehow to look at, you know, the architect of whiteness, you know, in the public imagination, and to give it a name or face, if you will, to that level of consumption.” Drawing on a deeply rich metaphor of the watering hole as a place of rejuvenation as well as a site of violence, this series of nine Duraflex prints accompanied by a pair of mixed-media works seeks to explores the idea of ambivalence and contradictory spaces. Initially, the term was triggered by serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, yet it speaks to a larger truth that we are all implicit in the idea of consuming the other.

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1. LAH
2. sold separately
3. sold separately
4. sold separately
5. Collection Museum of Modern Art – complete edition of 9
6. Collection of Maruani & Mercier – complete edition of 9
AP 1/2 sold separately
AP 2/2 Complete Edition of 9 Save for retirement
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2017/09/19/why-art-collector-aggie-gund-is-spending-100-million-to-combat-mass-incarceration/?tid=ss_mail&utm_term=.d85516bb758a

Ed. N°6/6

The Watering Hole was first exhibited in 1996 at Jack Tilton Gallery, New York. Since then, there have only been a few other occasions were the work has been on view in its entirety:

In 2008, as part of a mid-career survey exhibition of Harris’s work at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art.
In 2012, at Art Basel Miami, where it was on view in CRG’s booth.
In 2013, the series was collected by the MoMA, New York.
In 2014, at Paris Photo as part of the exhibition American Photography: Recent Acquisitions from the Museum of Modern Art which highlighted the museum’s photography collection.
And finally, in 2014 at MARUANI MERCIER in Brussels.

This iteration at The Warehouse will be the fifth time that it will be shown in its entirety since its inception.

Lyle Ashton Harris United States, b. 1965

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Lyle Ashton Harris United States, b. 1965

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