Object Details
- Artist
- Elia Alba, born New York City 1962
- Sitter
- Larry Levan
- Exhibition Label
- Alba’s photographs challenge the straightforward link between how a person looks and who they are. Here several partygoers wear masks depicting the face of Larry Levan (1954-1992), the legendary DJ of the Paradise Garage in New York City. Levan was a key figure of disco music originally nurtured in gay, black, and Latino communities. By combining the mask of a man and the body of a female, or placing a brown-skinned mask on a white body, Alba contests narrow definitions of race, gender, and sexuality.
- Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art, 2013
- Credit Line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase made possible by William W. W. Parker
- Copyright
- © 2006, Elia Alba
- 2006, printed 2010
- Object number
- 2013.45.1
- Restrictions & Rights
- Usage conditions apply
- Type
- Photography-Photoprint
- Medium
- gelatin silver print
- Dimensions
- image: 19 1/2 x 19 1/2 in. (49.5 x 49.5 cm) sheet: 20 1/2 x 20 in. (52.0 x 50.8 cm)
- See more items in
- Smithsonian American Art Museum Collection
- Department
- Graphic Arts
- Smithsonian American Art Museum
- Topic
- Recreation\dancing
- Dress\costume\mask
- Performing arts\other\DJ
- Portrait male
- Record ID
- saam_2013.45.1
- GUID (Link to Original Record)
- http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/vk7ec88c1ed-5321-4b2b-9d71-7f7d0057812f
