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Shortlisted for the Paris Photo–Aperture PhotoBook Awards 2022
Background information
"Both an artist’s book and comprehensive inquisition of the work by D’Angelo Lovell WILLIAMS to date, 'Contact High' offers an expansive engagement with the visualisation of desire and depiction of the Black body. Their narrative images reflect the many forms in which Black queer people exist and have existed historically within each other’s lives, picturing them as sitters, lovers, caregivers, or shadows. The work is guided by their life experience and an interrogation of their own perspective, as well as wider questions around the representation of race, class, sexuality, gender, and intimacy. The photo book's title 'Contact High' references the importance of touch and gesture in their work, and alludes to heightened senses and intuitive movement.
Content
From self-portraits to collaborations with community, the photographs by D'Angelo Lovell WILLIAMS in the photo book 'Contact High' visualise the Black body in performative scenes that are theatrical, dance-like, and occasionally mundane, pointing towards collective histories and Black ancestral practices. At the heart of these intimate, dialogic images are notions of kinship and spirituality interweaved with quietly political and radical gestures. Their unfaltering gaze insist on visibility and deference, and creates scenes in which Black and queer voices are the authority. The dynamics that play out between families, cultures, friends, lovers, ancestors and descendants are visualised as a spectrum of care, tenderness, and vulnerability, speaking to the nuances of our complex lives often overlooked by historical depictions." (© Mack books, 2022)
Additional information about the SIGNED edition
The signed edition includes an extra image plate signed by the artist and glued into the inside back cover.