The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art provides a platform for artistic exploration through multi-faceted queer perspectives. We embrace the power of the arts to inspire, explore, and foster understanding of the rich diversity of LGBTQ+ experiences. MORE FROM THE ARTIST ON BLACK MAGIC “I feel that the power of Black creative and resistance modalities are akin to Quantum Physics. Black individuals have had to possess an enormous amount of strength to navigate systemic racism. That power is amplified to an extraordinary amount when we unite, as is evident in the improvisation we saw in the streets across the country in the wake of George Floyd's murder. This energy is something that has long inspired me, and you can see it in the Black cultural production celebrated and abstracted in my work. Rock, hip-hop, jazz, ballroom, etc. are undoubtedly the crown jewels of American culture and are linked to liberation movements. Black Magic unearths the power embedded in Blackness by referencing creative expression born out of Black sociality.” ON THE PERFORMANCE “Vogue fem performance takes center stage in the originally performed piece in 2019 at NY Live Arts and Icebox Project Space in Philadelphia. I see this dance form as an open-source code. The language or binary code is based on five elements: hands performance, catwalk, floor performance, spin dips, and duck-walking. I'm fascinated by how different performers continue to add to the code. Some performers come to it with formal training in West African dance, ballet, Latin dance, hip-hop, and so on. That training becomes the connective tissue fusing the five elements. This new language becomes a new code, one that is shared and learned by another dancer, thus leading to an advanced system comprising all the languages before it. In some ways, one could see FIVE as a hackathon or code fest. This quantum approach is not only explored in the dance but in the music that I compose in real-time during the performance. A gospel choir, gregorian chants, live electronic music, live instrumentation, a vogue MC, and a live opera singer collide, acting as an operating system for the creation of a new sonic reality. As the dancers perform in the frame on the floor, they act as subatomic particles of the group. As we charge them with improvisational energy, a new form of Blackness emerges on the screen above them, one that is radical, abstract, and a part of the collective Black quantum body.” ON BLACK MAGIC IN COMMEMORATION OF WORLD AIDS DAY “The relentless marginalization of the Black Queer comunity has led to systemic oppression, violence, and instability. Despite living under these harsh conditions, people have formed powerful, self-sustaining social networks and culture like the NY Ballroom community, a Black/Latin X Queer artistic community with roots in the Harlem Renaissance. Sadly, many community leaders have been lost to the HIV and AIDS epidemic, and as this culture like many others created by Black people becomes appropriated by the masses, the history of it has the potential to die as well. The videos on the screens are scenes from the 3rd act of the live performance Black Magic. For that act, the dancers were asked to perform Black Magic, the human spirit's strength to navigate systemic racism, homophobia, and a deadly epidemic, with grace and dignity. The performances have been slowed down to focus on the movements of the performers. I see these videos as a memorial to all those lost in the struggle past and present.” ON THE KING OF ARMS TINCTURE “For the Midnight Moment iteration of the King of Arms Tincture, I animated the still image to exhibit it to present on the screens. How does one make transgressive work in a space dominated by capitalistic sensibilities? In this context, I see the King of Arms Tincture as an armor creating a more liberatory space for the display of the Queer Black bodies performing within the installation.”