A DECENTRALIZED PHYSICAL EXHIBITION CURATED BY DR. DARLA MIGAN
VARIABLE TERMS | "STRAIGHT LICK" | BLACK ART SESSIONS | JUNE 2021- ONGOING
LIMITED EDITION PRINTS DESIGNED by DU-GOOD PRESS
JUST LIE TO ME is an ongoing art exhibition of the conceptual artist Sebastien Pierre @bougieboybash exploring possibilities for decentralized channels through a community-organized curatorial project in Brooklyn and Queens.
As a professional graphic designer, Pierre’s improvisational practice in newsprint collage misappropriates the vernacular of commercial media driving the twin engine-algorithms of celebrity culture and the desire for mental strength.
Working together through online and in-person collaborations or random algorithm-defying acts of spontaneity, multiple iterations of JUST LIE TO ME continue to occur across time and space.
The six works presented in JUST LIE TO ME cut into the quiet arrangements driving our deepest desires for both social justice and staying cute. Between Pierre’s Haitian heritage and coming of age in Atlanta, Georgia and New York City, the artist’s consciousness grew with the recognition of how racialized identity remains context dependent.
Whether being identified as bougie (read: acting white) or as too urban (read: threatening), the unwinnable game of Black representation was expressed through the nihilistic embrace of capitalist excess by the anti-aspirational ‘Lil’s’ face-tat rap (circa 2016).
Through a mixtape inspired play of redaction and reduction, wordplay, font-play and, yes, cute cues referencing a generational shift in Black consciousness, JUST LIE TO ME disrupts formulaic representations of Blackness to gently bypass the (algo)rhythms of desire currently running the show.
The solo exhibition JUST LIE TO ME by the artist Sebastien Pierre is the inaugural exhibition of the curatorial venture Variable Terms founded by Darla Migan in 2021. One iteration of the exhibition opened concurrently with Black Art Sessions’ Straight Lick.
To continue exploring JUST LIE TO ME GET IN TOUCH: INFO@DARLANYC.COM
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