Transcendence : A Century of Black Queer Ecstasy, 1924–2024

A richly illustrated reflection on a century of Black queer art and culture featuring seven essays from leading scholars.

The word ecstasy derives from the Greek ekstasis, meaning “to put out of place.” It passed into English through the Old French extasie, which roughly translates as “rapturous.” Ecstasy, today, can be understood as a form of transcendence, often through an indiscriminate combination of extremes. Art’s truest depictions of ecstasy exist in the muddled territory between exaltation and despair. Transcendence highlights visual representations of Black queer ecstasy in a variety of media from the last one hundred years that challenge its absence from the historical record. Centering Blackness and queerness creates the conditions to investigate the potential of queer perspectives around the paradoxes of pleasure and pain, excess and lack, and autonomy and dependence.

This catalogue features seven essays by preeminent scholars of Black LGBTQ art and culture, each based on one of the volume’s subthemes: Portraiture; Beyond Figuration; Dance and Movement; Spirituality; Sex and Sensuality; Black Queer Futures; and Altered States. Together these themes represent the foundations of queer experiences and offer readers a space to engage with artwork and ephemera that highlight an ecstatically abundant past and advocate for a more inclusive and equitable future.