Lauren Halsey - Emajendat

Publisher: Rizzoli Electa
Year: 2024
Format: Hardcover
Edition: 1st Edition
Condition: New
Pages: 224
Size: 22.9 x 28cm

For the past decade, Lauren Halsey (b. 1987, Los Angeles, USA) has developed a distinct visual language deeply rooted in South Central Los Angeles where her family has lived for generations. Through objects and installations, Halsey archives and remixes the changing signs and symbols of her environment, gathering physical and graphic material from her neighbourhood. In her work Halsey merges past, present and future via her interest in iconography connected to the African diaspora, Black and queer icons and architecture. Halsey cites the collective sonic and visual layering associated with Funk music as the blueprint for her approach to making, traversing time and drawing on a wide range of sources.

On the occasion of the artist’s first solo exhibition in the UK, emajendat (11 October 2024 – 2 March 2025), Serpentine and Rizzoli have released the most comprehensive publication to date. Designed by ALASKA ALASKA, the London based design studio founded by Virgil Abloh in 2017, it brings together new and insightful contributions from poet Will Alexander; art historian LeRonn Brooks; musician and founding member of Parliament-Funkadelic, George Clinton; writer, dancer and experimental filmmaker, Harmony Holiday; poet and performer Douglas Kearney; and Serpentine CEO Bettina Korek. Generously illustrated in colour throughout, it also features an extensive conversation between Halsey and Serpentine’s Director of Programmes (interim) and Chief Curator, Lizzie Carey-Thomas and Artistic Director, Hans Ulrich Obrist.