The Lola Flash Collection
About the Artist
Working at the forefront of genderqueer visual politics for more than three decades, photographer Lola Flash’s (She/they) work challenges stereotypes and gender, sexual, and racial preconceptions. An active member of ACT UP during the time of the AIDS epidemic in New York City, Flash was notably featured in the 1989 “Kissing Doesn’t Kill” poster. Her art and activism are profoundly connected, fueling a life-long commitment to visibility and preserving the legacy of LGBTQIA+ and communities of color worldwide. Flash has work included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, The Museum of African American History, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Brooklyn Museum. She is currently a proud member of the Kamoinge Collective.
Flash received her bachelor's degree from Maryland Institute and her Masters’ from London College of Printing, in the UK. Flash works primarily in portraiture with a 4x5 film camera, engaging those who are often deemed invisible. Flash’s practice is firmly rooted in social justice advocacy around sexual, racial, and cultural difference.
Lola Flash in the News
"How Lola Flash, Photographer, Spends Her Sundays," New York Times, June 2021
"Lola Flash’s Afrofuturist Photographs Yearn for a Future without Mass Incarceration," Artsy, July 2020
Lola Flash's capsule collection with The Queenly NFT features selections from LEGENDS and syszygy, the vision. 5% of net proceeds from sales of NFTs in this collection will benefit QUEER | ART, creating a diverse and vibrant community through the support of LGBTQ+ art and artists across generations and disciplines.
Series LEGENDS
Per Lola Flash: These are the people who spearheaded a movement that wasn't a given. They are the trailblazers who presented an honest vision that clashed against societal norms. These actions alone placed them in harms way. Due to homophobia, they could have been killed. There there was once no canon, each LEGEND, in their own beautiful way, has harnessed a price that transcends hate. They made it possible for the LGBTQ+ community to not only survive but to live a life of love.
In this curated selection for The Queenly NFT, Flash features burlesque performer The Maine Attraction (Maine Anders) and Buck Angel, trans activist and pornographic star.
Lola Flash
The Maine Attraction, 2016
film photography
Lola Flash
Buck Angel, 2016
film photography
Series: syzygy, the vision
Per Lola Flash: In this self-portrait series, I am observing the straight-line configurations of our pasts, presents and futures. This multi-dimensional contemplation considers vast dimensions of intersectional disadvantages, cultural conflicts, and unsettling legacies. Heavy on my mind is the horror of America's mass incarceration and the question of breaking free. Can truth-seekers lead us to the place where we are human – shedding our black bodies of institutional "isms"? My soul is hopeful for a divine future where we are finally able to run anew, jumping in space from planet to planet, far away from the hash tag chatter and into a narrative of pure joy.
Flash was influenced by Afrofuturism for this self-portrait series. And although she began this series in August 2019, some have observed that the work seems to foreshadow the pandemic.
Lola Flash
Have Mercy, 2020
Manhattan, NY
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