Artwork Details
30-7/8 x 40-13/16 x 1-1/2 in. (framed)
Accession NumberPurchased with funds provided by Mark and Ora Pescovitz
CopyrightPrints, Drawings, and Photographs
Color Palette(Leslie Tonkonow + Projects, New York, New York); Indianapolis Museum of Art 2007
Between 1997 and 2001, Nikki S. Lee created thirteen photographic series—starting with The Punk Project—in which she infiltrated a social or ethnic community and adopted personas she based on their mannerisms and dress. This photograph, part of The Hispanic Project, depicts the artist in one such persona as she poses with someone she met and befriended on the street in New York City. Lee carried a point-and-shoot camera that she handed to others to take informal photographs of her with the group. While Lee goes to great effort to assimilate visually, the ease with which she becomes “punk” or “Hispanic” reveals the flimsiness and artificiality of such typecasting.
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