Shikeith: Notes towards Becoming a Spill

The first monograph by sculptor, filmmaker, and photographer Shikeith, Notes towards Becoming a Spill brings together a series of striking studio portraits of Black male subjects as they inhabit various states of meditation, prayer, and ecstasy. Shikeith describes the work as “leaning into the uncanny,” visualizing ritual and the process of excavating Black men’s erotic potential, the better to exorcise the “intangible presences that haunt their bodies and psyches.” The men’s faces and bodies glisten with sweat (and tears)—the manifestation and evidence of desire. This ecstasy is what critic Antwaun Sargent proclaims as “an ideal, a warm depiction that insists on concrete possibility for another world.” In this revelatory volume, Shikeith redefines the idea of sacred space and positions a Queer ethic identified by its investment in vulnerability, tenderness, and joy. Shikeith: Notes towards Becoming a Spill is made possible, in part, thanks to the generous contribution of 7G Foundation.

The first monograph by sculptor, filmmaker, and photographer Shikeith, Notes towards Becoming a Spill brings together a series of striking studio portraits of Black male subjects as they inhabit various states of meditation, prayer, and ecstasy.

Shikeith describes the work as “leaning into the uncanny,” visualizing ritual and the process of excavating Black men’s erotic potential, the better to exorcise the “intangible presences that haunt their bodies and psyches.” The men’s faces and bodies glisten with sweat (and tears)—the manifestation and evidence of desire. This ecstasy is what critic Antwaun Sargent proclaims as “an ideal, a warm depiction that insists on concrete possibility for another world.” In this revelatory volume, Shikeith redefines the idea of sacred space and positions a Queer ethic identified by its investment in vulnerability, tenderness, and joy.

Shikeith: Notes towards Becoming a Spill is made possible, in part, thanks to the generous contribution of 7G Foundation.