80 Washington Square East, NYU

Lyle Ashton Harris

Journal Excerpts 1997–2000

March 9 – June 9, 2016

Washington Windows

New York-based artist Lyle Ashton Harris presents a new installation comprised of images originally shot in the years 1986-98, including those drawn from his Ektachrome Archive series. Excavated from Harris’s extensive personal archive and exhibited together here for the first time, this diverse collection of evocative imagery captures fleeting moments lived three decades ago by the artist in public and private spaces among his circle of close friends, family and acquaintances.
 
The Washington Square Windows blow-ups and photographic prints drawn from hundreds of pages of Harris’s journals), against subtle musical refrains (improvised jazz riffs of John Coltrane and plaintive vocals of Roberta Flack), to produce an assemblage that serves not only to memorialize, but also to evoke lived moments at the intersection of the personal and the political, presenting a dynamic experience that re-engages time past to affectively impact the present.
 
Lyle Ashton Harris (born 1965, New York) has exhibited work widely, including at The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York) and The Whitney Museum of American Art (New York) among many others, as well as at international biennials (Busan, 2008; Venice, 2007; Seville, 2006; Gwangju, 2000). His work is represented in the permanent collections of major museums, most recently The Museum of Modern Art, New York. In 2014 Harris joined the Board of Trustees of the American Academy in Rome and was recipient of the David C. Driskell Prize by the High Museum of Art (Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A.). In 2016 he was awarded the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship and was appointed a trustee of the Tiffany Foundation. Having studied at Wesleyan University, the California Institute of the Arts, and the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program, Harris is currently an Associate Professor of Art and Art Education at New York University.

A street-level window display. Two windows are visible: one has a grid of 24 notebook pages against a black background. The other has a zoomed in detail of one notebook page.
A grid of 24 notebook pages against a black background.