Public Art Fund Debuts Clifford Prince King’s Autobiographical Photo Exhibition Capturing Queer Black Companionship and Selfhood

Clifford Prince King. dj and ryan, 2023. Archival inkjet print. Image: © Courtesy the artist; STARS Gallery, Los Angeles; and Gordon Robichaux, New York Photo: Nicholas Knight, Courtesy of Public Art Fund, NY. Presented by Public Art Fund as a part of Clifford Prince King: Let me know when you get home, an exhibition on 300 JCDecaux bus shelters and 30 newsstands in New York, Chicago, and Boston, February 21–May 26, 2024.

Clifford Prince King: Let me know when you get home

February 21–May 26, 2024
JCDecaux Bus Shelters and Newsstands
Citywide throughout New York, Chicago, and Boston

Public Art Fund presents Clifford Prince King’s exhibition of 13 new photographs, Let me know when you get home. This tender autobiographical series is on view on 300 JCDecaux bus shelters and 30 newsstands across New York, Chicago, and Boston. For his first public art exhibition, King photographed the people and places he encountered during travels in the summer of 2023. An extension of his autobiographical practice, Let me know when you get home serves as a photo diary of King’s time in artist residencies at BOFFO on Fire Island, Light Work in Syracuse, and Eighth House in Vermont, as well as travels throughout São Paulo and the Cayman Islands. During this period of transience, King sought to capture his sources of comfort, companionship, and love. The resulting series explores nature, intimacy, the act of claiming space, and the significance of creating a home.

“Let me know when you get home marks a nomadic period in the artist’s life when the people that surrounded him temporarily became his home. The series serves as a visual journey tracing King’s summer travels, cumulatively revealing a meditative self-portrait,” said Public Art Fund Adjunct Curator Katerina Stathopoulou. “Presented larger-than-life on hundreds of JCDecaux bus shelters and newsstands, King’s arresting portraits gaze directly at the viewer, diminishing the space between audience and subject.”

Based in New York, Clifford Prince King is a self-taught photographer who documents his relationships and experiences as a queer Black man, recording his life and the ways it is shaped by the people that surround him. Growing up in Arizona, King seldom saw his own identity reflected in images or popular films. A desire for representation led him to begin creating deeply personal images that extend an invitation to diverse audiences similarly seeking a sense of belonging, community, and safety.

“This series of works came about during a time in my life when the people, places, and pieces organically fell together to form a new sense of home. Displayed on public bus shelters and newsstands throughout the winter time, these photographs offer a breath of fresh air, surrender, and release, providing diverse audience members with warmth, tenderness, and an encouragement to embrace and heal from the past,” said King.

King’s photographs capture poignant moments of desire, closeness, and self-realization unfolding in lush natural environments and interior domestic spaces. At once ambiguous and narrative, the photographs take on a cinematic quality, evoking questions of what took place leading up to the image and what will come to pass. Using a 35mm film camera to lend the work a timeless, grainy quality, King bathes his subjects in the warm natural light of summer, capturing them in gentle poses of vulnerability, affection, and contemplation. Among the images unfurling the drama and warmth of relationships are a capoeira dancer caught mid-handstand on a rooftop in São Paolo, a couple standing closely together by the waterfront in the rain, and two lovers kissing while handcuffed off the side of a road, illuminated by car headlights.

The series title, Let me know when you get home, evokes layers of meaning surrounding experiences of affection and shelter. The phrase is an expression of care and concern for loved ones within spaces where safety isn’t guaranteed for members of LGTBQ+ and BIPOC communities. Additionally, it alludes to the exhibition’s presentation on bus shelters, sites for people commuting to and from their residences. Finally, the title also expresses the journey and desire to find a sense of belonging during transient and unmoored life stages.

Exploring companionship and selfhood, King’s six-foot portraits stand as pillars of LGTBQ+ and BIPOC communities, in scenes rich with poetry, release, and contemplation. With this new body of work, King strives to carve out space for people like himself in the city streets, making his subjects unapologetically visible.

Clifford Prince King: Let me know when you get home is curated by Public Art Fund Adjunct Curator Katerina Stathopoulou.

@PublicArtFund #CliffordPrinceKing

WHEN & WHERE

Let me know when you get home is on view on 300 JCDecaux bus shelters and 30 newsstands throughout New York City, Chicago, and Boston. The exhibition can be explored anytime, anywhere, on the free Bloomberg Connects app.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Clifford Prince King (b. 1993, Tucson, Arizona) lives and works in New York City. A self-taught photographer and filmmaker, King documents his personal relationships in traditional, everyday settings that speak on his experiences as a Queer Black man. King takes photos of friends, lovers, and acquaintances, many of whom have significant connections to the sites where they are pictured.

King’s recent solo exhibitions include Hush-a-bye Dreams, Gordon Robichaux, New York, NY (2023); Yesterday and Beyond, Carolyn Campagna Kleefeld Contemporary Art Museum, Long Beach, CA (2023); RASPBERRY BLOW, Stars Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2022); We Used to Lay Together, Light Work, Syracuse, NY (2021); Where Beauty Softens Your Grief, No Moon, Los Angeles (2021), CA. King’s photographs are in the public collections of the Hammer Museum, Kleefeld Contemporary Art Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Arts, ICA Miami, Minneapolis Institute of Art and Studio Museum in Harlem.

RELATED FREE PROGRAMMING

Public Art Fund Talks: Clifford Prince King

6:30 – 7:30 pm ET, February 27, 2024
The Cooper Union, Frederick P. Rose Auditorium To RSVP and learn more, click here.

Hot Cocoa On-the-Go with Clifford Prince King

3:00 – 4:30 pm ET, March 12, 2024 JCDecaux Bus Shelters on DeKalb Avenue between Knickerbocker and Wycoff Avenues, in Bushwick, Brooklyn
Public Art Fund and Clifford Prince King will offer commuters a warm welcome with hot cocoa at JCDecaux bus shelters in Bushwick featuring King’s work, in partnership with Lips Cafe, GREERChicago, and the New York Transit Museum.

ABOUT PUBLIC ART FUND

As the leader in its field, Public Art Fund brings dynamic contemporary art to a broad audience in New York City and beyond by mounting ambitious free exhibitions of international scope and impact that offer the public powerful experiences with art and the urban environment.

Begun in 2017, Public Art Fund’s partnership with JCDecaux has grown to include ten exhibitions across seven cities around the globe.

ABOUT JCDECAUX

The JCDecaux Group is the number one outdoor advertising company worldwide, reaching more than 850 million people daily in over 80 countries and 3,518 cities. JCDecaux is working towards more sustainable spaces and is recognized for its extra-financial performance in the FTSE4Good (3.6/5), CDP (A Leadership), MSCI (AA), and has achieved Gold Medal status from EcoVadis. In the U.S., the JCDecaux program includes airports, billboards, malls, as well as street furniture programs in New York, Chicago, Boston, and San Francisco.

SUPPORTS

Bloomberg Philanthropies is the presenting sponsor of Clifford Prince King: Let me know when you get home.

Leadership support for Let me know when you get home is provided by Jennifer Sykes Harris, and Elizabeth Fearon Pepperman & Richard C. Pepperman II. Additional support is provided by Ann & Mel Schaffer.

Special thanks to JCDecaux.

Public Art Fund is supported by the generosity of individuals, corporations, and private foundations including lead support from Bloomberg Philanthropies, along with major support from Abrams Foundation, the Charina Endowment Fund, the Joseph and Joan Cullman Foundation for the Arts, The Fuhrman Family Foundation, The Marc Haas Foundation, Hartfield Foundation, William Talbott Hillman Foundation- Affirmation Arts Fund, the Donald A. Pels Charitable Trust, Red Crane Foundation, The Silverweed Foundation, and Wagner Foundation.

Public Art Fund exhibitions and programs are also supported in part with public funds from government agencies, including the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the New York State Legislature, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.