LEX

GAF 2023

Student Leadership Team

Artists

Events

Installation Views

ARTIST STATEMENT

the altar of resources—a poem and video—analyzes the interpretation of racialized and gendered bodies in visual culture by critiquing the body as a marker of identity. This work explores possibilities of escaping narrative frameworks where historical stereotypes are inscribed upon Black female bodies. By evoking traditions of Black female and queer entertainers, the altar of resources simultaneously reproduces and resists objectification by highlighting themes of fetishization, surveillance, self-sexualization, and history production.

I am not an identity artist just because I am a Black artist with multiple selves. I am grappling with safety and futurity.We look. We capture. We watch.We worship Our altar of resources, Who happen to be rich and white. And, who are we? We are culture. We violate. We condemn. We remember. We alter, According to  memory’s needs. Who, What, When, Where, But never why, Or even how… Why do we need safety? Why should we secure futurity? Why do we worship this altar of resources?

How do I find safety? How do I secure futurity? How do I protest Your altar of resources?Besieged with the legacy of Performing the Other, Where will I find refuge?My body is Judge, Jury, and Prosecutor Of my realness.Three strikes. Woman. Black. Queer. Three strikes And I’m out. Exposed. Exploited. Consumed. I am not asking Who I am. I am transcending. I am becoming. I am longing. I am escaping To the land of NOPE, In the in-betweens Of a glitched landscape. Expose me. Exploit me. Consume me.

Love me. Absorb me. Worship me.In the fantasy Of an individual.I think… I think of… I think of this.. I think of this in order to…Remember. To remember Is an ethical act. To make peace Is to forget. But, I must forget. To transcend. To become. To belong. To confront reality. I must forget In my remembering. The status of reality Remains contested In performance. Who are we? Who are you? Who am I? I am an identity artist because I am a Black artist with multiple selves.

BIO

LEX (she/they) currently attends NYU Gallatin, examining the relationship between Black performative acts of identity and ideological beliefs about Black womanhood. They investigate the historical consciousness of gender and race in the United States through the intersections of Black cultural studies, performance studies, queer theory, environmental studies, and contemporary art. In their artistic practice, they use a variety of media to explore the meanings of authenticity, femininity, self, and Blackness.