Our First and Last Love

By Suzanne Révy

The emotional charge of naïve vernacular snapshots far outweigh their humble size. They are personal documents and artifacts of their times, collectively weaving private and public histories from singular experiences. Artist Lyle Ashton Harris, whose grandfather avidly photographed his family, collects these along with ephemera from newspaper clippings, textiles and postcards to create powerful collages and photographs that speak to the politics of identity, memory and love. Lyle Ashton Harris: Our First and Last Love is his first solo show in New England in more than two decades and is on view at the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University through July 2nd, 2023. TONIGHT! There will be an online conversation between Harris and artist Renée Cox at 7pm. 

Lyle Ashton Harris: Our First and Last Love at the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, installation photograph by Suzanne Révy.

Ephemera from the artist’s collection in Lyle Ashton Harris: Our First and Last Love on view at the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University, installation photograph by Suzanne Révy.

As a teen, Lyle Ashton Harris carried a camera everywhere. He was influenced by a grandfather who produced thousands of slides of everyday life at home and church in Harlem. Harris’ archival collection of family pictures and ephemera fill two large vitrines in the exhibition which also features original photographs and layered collages from over thirty-five years of his artistic practice. Harris has employed a wide variety of materials, from gelatin silver to large color Polaroids and dye-sublimation onto aluminum. He creates both collaborative and self-portraits to probe the traits of his own character and that of his friends and family. He delves deeper by scanning snapshots and incorporating them into complex collages that mine the connections and disconnections between generations. 

Americas (Triptych) Miss Girl; Kym, Lyle & Crinoline; Miss America” by © Lyle Ashton Harris, 1987-8, gelatin silver prints, edition 5 of 6, courtesy of Jeanne Greenburg Rohatyn; the artist; LGDR New York; and the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University, Waltham, MA.

“Untitled (Pre-election self-portrait New York Times commission)” by © Lyle Ashton Harris, 2000, inkjet print on watercolor paper, Hort Family Collection, courtesy of the artist and the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University, Waltham, MA.

“Venus Hottentot 2000” by © Lyle Ashton Harris in collaboration with Renee Cox, 1994, courtesy of Jeanne Greenburg, the artist and the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University, Waltham, MA.

During the eighties and nineties, Ashton Harris made both portraits with friends, and several self-portraits that explore issues around belonging. His potent triptych, Americas features Harris and a model in white face that reference the issue of “passing” or suppressing one’s Black identity in order to assimilate into a broader American culture. These large gelatin silver prints are jaw droppingly gorgeous. In a black and white self-portrait with his wrists in shackles, Harris examines the bondage of enslavement while simultaneously indicting the current climate of police violence against Black men. Several large-scale color Polaroid portraits explore sexuality and the objectification of black bodies, particularly one made in collaboration with the artist Renee Cox in 1994. She wears prosthetic breasts and buttocks in reference to Saartjie Baartman, a 19th century Black South African woman whose physical deformity became a public spectacle in venues such as London’s Picadilly Circus. Harris and Cox endow her with confidence and agency, and her remains were finally repatriated at Nelson Mandela’s request in 2003. 

“Obsessão II” (detail) by Lyle Ashton Harris, 2017, from the Blow Up series (2004-2019)mixed media collage on panel, courtesy of the artist and LGDR, New York, installation photograph by Suzanne Révy.

“Succession” by Lyle Ashton Harris, 2020 from the Shadow Works series, Ghanian cloth, dye sublimation prints, and artist’s ephemera, courtesy of a private collection, the artist, LGDR, New York and the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University, Waltham, MA.

“Queen Mother” by © Lyle Ashton Harris, 2019, Ghanaian cloth, dye sublimation prints, and artist’s ephemera. Private Collection, courtesy of the artist and LGDR, New York and the Rose Museum of Art at Brandeis University. Waltham, MA.

Harris made a series of collages between 2004 and 2019 after rediscovering his own archive of Ektachrome slides called the Blow Up series. These massive collages map both intimate and public narratives through repetitive imagery, handwritten notes and the colored gels used in his photo studio. His more recent series, Shadow Works, is more concise and deliberate in construction. For example, Succession features a snapshot of the artist as a toddler on the lap of his father, his brother sitting nearby, along with images from his archive mounted onto Ghanian textiles. There is a generational tension in the work, despite the tender picture of a father with his sons. In Queen Mother, Harris reexamines cultural signifiers through art objects and snapshots to discover a continuum of identity. He seems to be asking throughout his work, how are we the same? How are we different? How do we see ourselves in others? Who am I? And where do we find connection and love? 

For more information and to register for tonight’s conversation: https://www.brandeis.edu/rose/

“Americas (Triptych) Miss Girl; Kym, Lyle & Crinoline; Miss America” by © Lyle Ashton Harris, 1987-8, gelatin silver prints, Edition 5/6, courtesy of Jeanne Greenburg Rohatyn; the artist and LGDR, New York; installation photograph by Suzanne Révy.