Lyle Ashton Harris, Untitled (Red Handcuffs), 2017 | Works on Paper

Untitled (New York Times Pre-Election Self Portrait Commission) Series
2000-2017

-In 2000 Lyle Ashton Harris and five other photographers (Malerie Marder, Nan Goldin, Chuck Close, Duane Michals, and Robert Frank) were commissioned by the New York Times Magazine to produce self-portraits in anticipation for the 2000 presidential election. Harris then produced the original image, a 20x24 unique polaroid Untitled (New York Times Pre-Election Self Portrait Commission), 2000. On this work Harris stated:
“Before, my self-portraits engaged in a certain level of masquerade and more ambiguity. In a way, I'm more
stripped bare in this portrait. My own sense of anger and passion is really revealed. But it's not strictly
autobiographical. It also reveals a certain sense of the Passion and a heightened sense of anxiety around desire,
death and mortality. I'm interested in those layerings.”

- Lyle Ashton Harris, New York Times Magazine, May 7, 2000

- Following its initial debut Harris produced two new edition sizes of the work in digital inkjet prints on watercolor. An edition of 10 with 2 AP 41.5 x 37 inch prints was produced in 2000 with Adamson Editions. An edition of 25 with 5 AP’s 22.87 x 18.5 inch prints was also produced with Adamson Editions. An edition of the 44.5 x 33 inch print is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

- In 2007 in preparation for the Venice Biennial Harris experimented with printing images on silver foil, resulting in Untitled (Silver Handcuffs), 2007. This work (an edition of 6 with 2 AP’s 47 x 35 inch digital pigment prints) was produced with Adamson Editions and is in the permanent collection of the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.

- In 2016 Harris began working again with Griffen Editions to experiment with the process of Dye-sublimation. Harris then produced an edition of 5 with 2 AP’s 50 x 60 inch dye-sublimation prints on aluminum. The most recent iteration of the series Untitled (Red Handcuffs), 2017 is a blood red dye sublimation work measuring 45 x 34 inches (edition of 5 with 2 AP’s). In West African cultures, red is used as a symbol of heightened spiritual mood and struggle. For the artist, red echoes the continuation of the use of the color red as in the artists Blow Up (2004-2016) and the use of red filters in his large scale montage works.

- Different iterations of the work have appeared in numerous publications and exhibitions. Untitled (New York Times Pre-Election Self Portrait Commission), 2000 appeared in Richard J Powell’s 2008 publication Cutting A Figure: Fashioning Black Portraiture. Untitled (Silver Handcuffs), 2007 appeared in The Image of the Black in Western Art; Volume V; The 20th Century: Rise of Black Artists edited by David Bindman and Henry Louis Gates Jr.

- From the same initial shoot the artist produced another image which would then be the foundation for his Untitled (Triptych), 2014. The resulting triptych is rendered in the colors of the pan-African flag is an RGB six color silkscreen, oil based, varnish top coat each on Saunders Waterford Hot Press Paper. Untitled (Triptych), 2014 is 30 x 42 inches an in an edition of 25.

Lyle Ashton Harris United States, b. 1965

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Lyle Ashton Harris United States, b. 1965