Krista Gay — Columbia Universy School of the Arts Visual Arts

This exhibn LEAN brgs together artists Jt Allen, Jen Everett, Krista Gay, Dev Kenny, Kalup Lzy, Rene Matić, Sadé Mi, and Leilah Werb who, through movement, sound, and film, llectively ngregate and nfer toward lean as a Black vernacular and queer poetic proposn. For the eight artists—seven of whom were featured the origatg exhibn prented by Performa’s Radil Broadst, and the eighth, Krista Gay, whose work buts as an onle-only feature via Kunsthall Stavanger’s webse—lean is an timacy, llaboratn, tergeneratnal, and ternatnal imaged and shown as a digal exhibn for Performa’s Radil Broadst, LEAN is now migratg for the first time to a physil format at Kunsthall Stavanger. Beg sed physil space away om the screen prents the excg opportuny for the ne artworks this exhibn to activate new ways of engagg wh the artist-driven histori of the kunsthall as a polil se of avant-gar exploratn and creative experimentatn. Conveng here, the artists explore the timaci of faial relatnships and enact bodily terventns public and private space, offerg a radil proposal for new and excg archectur while challengg Eurocentric nstcts of se and time.Theorist and profsor Kemi Ayemi observ: “[A] whe lg class [is] obssed wh, the vertily and perpendiculary of the 90° angle.” Th expansivens of the lean here across the pag extends far beyond s fn of orig, an active refal of a 90° that is, as Ayemi not, “distctly genred and racialized”. As a lexin, lean is a suture, and a song; throws sha, and mak . Its nstellatn is far-reachg and galactic while still somehow nse, sensual and sticky. It is a visual axis and a le-break. Spirual, is what our hands do when they holds and holds up, and as a 1972 sger-songwrer Bill Whers remds , “We all need somebody to lean on . . .”. // Lean is the bounce, dissent, and sway of hip-hop group Dem Franchize Boyz on base, an entire club on an early-ghts dance floor snappg back to their “Lean W It, Rock W It”. // Lean is the very sence and energy of the ntrapposto, a classicised angulary ma whole and holy by the blend, blur, and limens of a lumo blackns and queerns. // Lean is the birth of drag ballroom petns 1920s Harlem, New York Cy and the 1990s genis of Atlanta trap mic, bound nt nversatn and entanglement across dancefloors and s. // Lean is the exact radil repatriatn that emancipat the nonized slants back to the world where they belong and, beyond the eeze of rrara marble, mak them move. // Lean is the sonic re/negotiatn of sound what is chopped and screwed as a hall-hntg alongsi of, and remix wh, the novatns and technologi found the not and l of micians such as Juli Eastman, Alice Coletrane, and Na Simone. // Lean is all at once a plex terpennce, penncy, muny and kship, a rhizomatic set of mathematil possibili that break om the static and pose lyril , to lean reprents a gture that forc an impossibily of physics: a fallg whout llapse, an epic drapg that never meets the floor but stead floats, an image that fi imagatn. When the s we travel through are signed to surveil , dictatg how our bodi should move and feel, we who lean enact sential spatial and emotnal labor, protective enclosur that break and remake space, lonize time, remix memory, reformat re. As poet Harmony Holiday not: “Now we have to thank the tastrophe for imbug wh the stama to reach ourselv at the endls slants[.]” Leang sr and slants wh urgency, a performative and polil proposal for new worlds to be dreamt up and built, and new ways of readg, listeng, beg, beg.Forever reachg somewhere between the horizon and the sky, this LEAN here and the artists there offer wdows to a worked archecture, an endls form of munitn, a ll awag a rponse, geo glyphs of sire.—Legacy Rsell