Artist Christopher Udemezue joins fellow goth kids Juliana Huxtable and Leila Taylor to unpack his new exhibition of images at Ryan Lee.
in this moisture between us where the guinep peels layUdemezue’s newly-opened show at Ryan Lee Gallery: a lush series of images directly inspired by travels to his ancestral homeland in rural Jamaica, displayed alongside historic bronze figures by Harlem Renaissance-era sculptor Richmond Barthé, who also resided in Jamaica for decades. “I’ve been thinking a lot about island goth,” Udemezue says.
TAYLOR: It’s interesting that you mentioned the aesthetics of goth and how it’s easy to have a surface understanding of what this subculture is. I got into this pre-Hot Topic and pre-internet, so I wasn’t really shopping for a ready-made outfit or looking at goth makeup tutorials on TikTok. Goth-ness for me was always about being open to and curious about the macabre, and death in particular.
UDEMEZUE: Juliana, what was the beginning of your attraction to goth and rock music when you were younger? TAYLOR: Yeah, I mean I’m pretty solidly Midwestern. My mom’s from Indiana, originally Kentucky, my dad’s from Atchison, Kansas, I grew up in Ohio and Michigan. So the Midwest weirdness is there.TAYLOR: There’s a lot of denial and repression and so much space. I think one thing that’s particularly American gothic, as opposed to a claustrophobic dark castle, is the creepiness of having too much space around you.
HUXTABLE: It’s really important to get into the history ’cause so much of post-punk comes directly from Jamaican immigrants to the UK. If you listen to The Slits, who aren’t considered goth, but they’re from that era of the UK, all of that music is like reggae, ska, dancehall. I remember when I sent you that Bauhaus song that was literally just a white man on top of an early dancehall or reggae track. So much Black diasporic expression is really served a short hand.
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