Kia LaBeija’s “Prepare My Heart, a new exhibition at Fotografiska, is an intimate meditation on love, New York’s ballroom scene, and the artist's late mother.
“Prepare My Heart,” the current exhibition displayed on the fourth floor of Fotografiska, begins with a glamorous smoke screen. Welcoming guests into the first gallery space is a self-portrait of the photographer and exhibition’s artist,sporting a black bob. Her body and face are darkened to blend in with the background, and speckles of white dots are spontaneously spread throughout, transforming the 31-year-old into a constellation of sorts.
The other side LaBeija alludes to is made clear as the exhibition continues and the opulent façade of ballroom pageantry fades into her story of trials, love, and loss. The exhibition explores the duality of LaBeija’s life: the glamour of art and ballroom, the despair of dealing with her mother’s death at age 14, the difficulty of dating while HIV positive, and the love she’s found.
LaBeija’s mother, Kwan Bennett, was an AIDS activist and immigrant from the Philippines, who died from the complications of the disease when LaBeija was just 14 years old. “There are many things that I held on to [when my mother died],” she says. The day before her mother was put on a ventilator, LaBeija recalls her mother asking if she wanted to go on a walk with her and her dad around the hospital.
In the autobiographical show, LaBeija also touches on what it was like to find romantic love as someone who has been HIV positive since birth. “Growing up was hard,” LaBeija says. “The first person I disclosed my status to, I didn’t immediately. When I did, it was the worst moment in my life.”Within her work, the artist references a frequent phrase she’s heard throughout her dating life with a photo of the illuminated words “I risked my life for you” resting on her chest.
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