LAUREN HALSEY

Halsey’s work proposes visionary new possibilities for art and architecture that convey the vitality, pride, and resilience of her community in South Central Los Angeles, an area that has long played an important role in defining Black culture. The exhibition in Paris features two related series: foil works (2011–) and protruded engravings (2022–). In both bodies of work, Halsey collects and repurposes imagery unique to her community as means of commemoration, celebration, and transcendence.

The eight-foot-tall wall-mounted foil works are mixed-media assemblages on foil-insulated foam, a support that reflects Halsey’s interest in architectural materials. Combining found objects and collaged images, she produces dense, colourful compositions with an energy that echoes that of the community that inspires them. The works incorporate a wide range of vernacular iconography and slogans, commercial signs and products, fliers, and graffiti that promote local businesses, institutions, and activism. In her collective representations of those who live in South Central LA, Halsey voices support for efforts against forces of gentrification, displacement, and disenfranchisement. Also pictured within the densely montaged compositions are Black and queer icons including musicians such as Joan Armatrading, Aretha Franklin, Curtis Mayfield, Luther Vandross, and Stevie Wonder.

Halsey produces protruded engravings using a dense, durable form of polymer-modified gypsum, carved into wall-mounted reliefs with an applied patina. They feature words and symbols inspired by the lived experience and visual culture of South Central residents, remixed with ancient Egyptian iconography and Afrofuturist utopian visions. Espousing an optimistic understanding of communal identity, these works use imagery related to the eastside of south central los angeles hieroglyph prototype architecture (I) (2023), Halsey’s monumental site-specific commission for the roof garden at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Halsey will participate this year in Stranieri Ovunque—Foreigners Everywhere, curated by Adriano Pedrosa for the 60th Biennale di Venezia, on view from April 20 through November 24, 2024. In addition, Serpentine, London, will organise the first solo exhibition of Halsey’s work in the United Kingdom, open from October 4, 2024, through January 5, 2025.

Press release courtesy Gagosian