Lyle Ashton Harris

Overview

Construct #10 (referenced as Degas), 1989

How long will I continue to play the game of mastery of the false self? When will the performance end? I long for that.

American artist Lyle Ashton Harris has cultivated a diverse artistic practice ranging from photography and collage to installation and performance art. His work explores intersections of the personal and the political, examining the impact of ethnicity, gender, and desire on the contemporary social and cultural dynamic.

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Biography

There is an archivist part of me that is about the historical and creating that space as a form of service to myself and others. Then there’s also the part of myself who is about luxuriating. I’ve noticed with a lot of my students now who are young and queer, that there is a return to the romantic, and I’m finding that they are troubled by the lack of intimacy that exists in social media settings. So I am interested in working against that by seeking out genuine connection and interaction, complex and rich and deep because I find that there is a way in which we, a lot of us, have turned over our sexualities. — Lyle Ashton Harris

Lyle Ashton Harris has cultivated a diverse artistic practice ranging from photography and collage to installation and performance art. His work explores intersections between the personal and the political, examining the impact of ethnicity, gender, and desire on the contemporary social and cultural dynamic.

Harris is represented in the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles, the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Pérez Art Museum,...