The Brooklyn Rail

Lyle Ashton Harris
Salon 94 | November 9, 2018 – January 12, 2019

Constructing a synthetic space in a natural landscape,

Bending body is subversive countenance,

While Afropunk Odalisque watches the spirit of the dead.

Some praise pansexuality, gorgeous androgyny, solid

Gender neutrality, and the aplomb intersectionality of

Anima mundi, others still remember The Watering Hole

And the anxiety around beauty as his cosmogram.

Erotic images from the margins flirting with the center,

Becoming a God, a stranger, or mythical healer of

The living dead as if walking the night below the eerie moon,

Talking back and through the glass might invoke a

Flash of the Spirit, nobility of purpose, Nocturnal Guardian,

Shadow Play, magic, myth, and metaphor that keep

The memory alive. He strokes the air, ogling the void,

Time suspends when it has to. This moment of enigma.