Encompassing photography, film, painting, sculpture, and installation, Awol Erizku’s work references and re-imagines African American and African visual culture, from hip-hop vernacular to iconic symbols from across history, including the Pan-African flag and the image of Nefertiti. Erizku’s vision is expansive, drawing on traditions of spirituality, Surrealism, and Conceptualism to create uniquely powerful art.
Mystic Parallax is the first major monograph (co-published by the Momentary and Aperture) and exhibition by this rising interdisciplinary artist. It blends his studio practice with work made as an in-demand editorial photographer, and features his conceptual portraits of leading Black cultural figures, such as Amanda Gorman, Michael B. Jordan, Pharrell Williams, and Solange. As Erizku has said, “It’s important for me to create confident, powerful, downright regal images of Black people.”