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.