Let’s Talk: Artists of Color Series

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 has been widely exhibited internationally, including most recently in “Photography’s Last Century” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; in “Basquiat’s ‘Defacement’: The Untold Story’’ and “Implicit Tensions: Mapplethorpe Now” at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; in “United by AIDS” at Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich; in “Kiss My Genders” at the Haywood Gallery, London; in “Tell Me Your Story” at Kunsthal KaDE, Amersfoort, NL; in “Elements of Vogue” at the Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Madrid (traveled to Museo Universitario del Chopo, Mexico City). Harris’s work was included in the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007), the Busan Biennial, South Korea (2008), the Bienal de São Paulo (2016), the Whitney Biennial (2017), and presented by Cinéma Du Réel at the Centre Pompidou, Paris (2018).  

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 Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; the Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College, Annendale-on-Hudson, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles; the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Pérez Art Museum, Miami; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Tate Modern, London, UK; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, Spain; Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich, Switzerland, among others.

Harris has also presented performances at a range of venues, most recently at Volksbühne Grüner Salon sponsored by KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2019); a lecture/performance on Andy Warhol presented by the DIA Art Foundation, New York (2018); and an installation/performance at Participant Inc., New York (2018); and a lecture/performance on experimentation, politics and sexuality in the work of filmmaker Marlon T. Riggs at Griffin Art Projects, Vancouver BC, Canada (2020).

Harris received a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (2016), the David C. Driskell Prize from the High Museum of Art, Atlanta (2014), and the Rome Prize Fellowship (2000) among other awards and honors. Harris joined the Board of Trustees of the American Academy in Rome in 2014 and was appointed a trustee of the Tiffany Foundation in 2016.

Born in the Bronx, New York, raised in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and New York, Harris obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree from Wesleyan University, a Master of Fine Arts degree from the California Institute of the Arts, and attended the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program. His work is available from the following fine art galleries: Salon 94 (New York, NY, USA); David Castillo (Miami, FL, USA); Nancy Littlejohn Fine Art (Houston, TX, USA); Albert Merola Gallery (Provincetown, MA, USA); Maruani Mercier (Brussels, BE). Harris is a Professor of Art at New York University and lives in New York."

Joshua Rashaad McFadden, visual artist and Assistant Professor of Photography at Rochester Institute of Technology, uses portraiture and archival imagery to explore themes and concepts related to identity, masculinity, history, race, and sexuality. His practice provides a frame of reference that articulates the many personalities of Black men. McFadden, Rochester, N.Y. native, holds a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art from Elizabeth City State University and a Master of Fine Art from Savannah College of Art and Design. McFadden received the first place International Photography Award (IPA) for "After Selma," his photographic response to numerous police brutality incidents in 2015. He also won the first place IPA award in 2016 for "Come to Selfhood," his series examining African American manhood. In 2017, McFadden was recognized as one of Time Magazine's "American Voices" and received the Duke University Archive of Documentary Arts Collection Award for Documentarians of Color. McFadden's "I Am A Man" photographic series with the Smithsonian Magazine won him the 2018 Communication Arts Award of Excellence. McFadden's work has appeared in The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, Time Magazine, Slate Magazine, Travel + Leisure, National Geographic, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. McFadden' s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally.