Description
A self-taught queer Black artist, Clifford Prince King uses his life and experiences as starting points to explore desire, intimacy, and daily life. He will often depict himself and others within the beige domestic spaces dotted around LA. We see a brotherhood of men enacting moments of domestic bliss, nude bodies in the moments before or after a sexual encounter, and the daily routine and side effects of living with HIV.
King photographs a cast of bare-bodied men. He makes us privy to intimate encounters, sexual in some cases, but also to the less sensational acts of love. His images invite the viewer to engage with two young men slow-dancing in the kitchen, another group piled together fixing hair and passing a joint. The casual, sexual, brotherly intimacy that ripples across King’s imagery offers an alternative to mainstream masculinity.
This catalog includes an essay by Light Work’s director Dan Boardman.
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Clifford Prince King documents his intimate relationships in traditional, everyday settings that evoke his experiences as a queer Black man. In these instances, communion begins to morph into an offering of memory. In this way, he honors and celebrates the reality of layered personhood. King has exhibited his photographs nationally and internationally. Public collections holding his work include the Kleefeld Contemporary Art Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Arts, and Minneapolis Institute of Art. King was runner-up for the Robert Giard Emerging Artist Grant in 2020 and among The British Journal of Photography’s “Ones to Watch” in 2022. He has recently exhibited work at Jeffrey Dietch Gallery (Los Angeles), Higher Pictures (New York City), Leslie Lohman Museum (New York City), MASS MoCA, Marc Selwyn Gallery (Beverly Hills), and Stars Gallery (Los Angeles). Publications carrying King’s images as commissioned work and in features include Aperture, Dazed, i-D, T Magazine, The New York Times, and Vogue.
