Netherlands -- Amsterdam -- Description and Travel
New York (N.Y.) -- Description and Travel
Tanzania -- Description and Travel
Date:
2017 March 27-29
Scope and Contents:
An interview with Lyle Ashton Harris, conducted 2017 March 27 and 29, by Alex Fialho, for the Archives of American Art's Visual Arts and the AIDS Epidemic: An Oral History Project, at Harris's studio and home in New York, New York.
Harris speaks of his childhood in the Bronx; his family's influence on his race-consciousness; living in Tanzania for two years as a child and the effects on his understanding of race and sexuality; his grandfather's extensive photographic archive; contact with the South African diaspora through his step-father; attending Wesleyan University; formative experiences in London, Amsterdam, and New York in the mid-1980s; his education and development as a photographer; attending CalArts and encountering West Coast AIDS activism; encountering systemic racism in Los Angeles; close friendships with Marlon Riggs and Essex Hemphill; exhibitions of his work in New York in the early 1990s; the production of his Ektachrome Archive and his impulse to photograph daily life; his work on the Black Community AIDS Research and Education (Black C.A.R.E.) project in Los Angeles; participating in the Whitney Museum's Independent Study Program; being diagnosed with HIV and remaining asymptomatic; attending the Dia Black Popular Culture Conference in 1992; photographing and mounting "The Good Life" in 1994 and "The Watering Hole" in 1996; issues of blackness and queerness in his photographic work; his residency at the American Academy in Rome in 2000; moving to Accra, Ghana for seven years in 2005; his pedagogy as an art professor; his thoughts on the lack of voices of color in the Visual Arts and the AIDS Epidemic Oral History Project and in the larger power structures of the art world; and his hope that his artistic legacy will be evaluated in its proper context. Harris also recalls Jackie and Robert O'Meally, Jay Seeley, Ellen O'Dench, Francesca Woodman, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jim Collier, Robert Mapplethorpe, Allan Sekula, Hazel Carby, Isaac Julien, Catherine Lord, Millie Wilson, Todd Gray, John Grayson, Tommy Gear, Marlon Riggs, Essex Hemphill, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Nancy Barton, Vickie Mays, Connie Butler, Greg Tate, Henry Louis Gates, Houston Baker, Nan Goldin, Jack Tilton, Simon Watson, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Lyle Ashton Harris (1965- ) is an artist who works in video, photography, and performance in New York, New York. Alex Fialho (1989- ) is a curator and arts writer and works as Programs Director for Visual AIDS in New York, New York.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
Occupation:
Performance artists -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Photographers -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Video artists -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Papers documenting Fred Karger's acting career, his activism for marriage equality, preservation of the Boom Boom Room (Laguna Beach, California) and other LGBT concerns, Karger's political consulting, and his candidacy for United States President, 2012, as the first openly gay candidate of a major political party.
Content Description:
The Fred Karger Papers consist mostly of secondary materials, film scripts, newspapers, periodicals, and clippings documenting activist and former presidential candidate Fred Karger's brief film and television acting career, his activism for preservation of the Boom Boom Room (originally the South Seas) at the Coast Inn, "Save the Boom", and material from his candidacy for president in 2012. The papers contain material related to Karger's activism for marriage equality and other LGBT concerns.
The collection includes material relating to his childhood education, such as school photographs; his acting career, scripts from television shows and motion pictures he appeared in; and brochures and flyers from his political activism, including boycotts of businesses supporting Proposition 8 (protecting "traditional marriage") in California. The bulk of material relates to Karger's efforts to save the Boom Boom Room (Laguna Beach, California) credited with being the oldest gay bar in West of the Mississippi. The collection includes protest posters, some hand made; columns, articles, clippings and magazines containing articles by and about Karger, some gay-oriented, others not. Material from his presidential campaign is also included such as yard signs, posters, and posters from the 2014 documentary, Fred. There is also a framed letter from Richard M. Nixon.
There are also vintage magazines and newspaper articles covering major events, such as President John F. Kennedy's assassination and the attack on 9/11.
Arrangement:
These papers are arranged into four series.
Series 1: Activism and Presidential Campaign, 1988-2014, undated
Series 2: Theatrical Scripts, 1971-1976
Series 3: Newspapers and Magazines, 1963-2025
Series 4: Photographs and Ephemera, 1950-2010, undated
Biographical / Historical:
Portions of this biography were supplied by the donor, Fred Karger.
Fred S. Karger was born on Januray 31, 1950 in Glencoe, Illinois, the son of Richard (1911-1998) and Jean Foreman Karger (1918-2003). He attended primary and secondary schools in Glencoe. In the mid-1970s Karger pursued an acting career in Los Angeles, California. He later pursued a career in political consulting.
"Fred Karger is an American political consultant, LGBTQ rights activist, author, political pundit, writer, public speaker, former actor and 2012 presidential candidate for the Republican nomination for President. Karger has worked on ten presidential campaigns and served as a senior consultant during the campaigns of President's Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and Gerald Ford.
Karger was a partner in the Dolphin Group, a California based political consulting firm for 27 years. He retired in 2004 and has since worked as an LGBTQ activist. He began in 2006 trying to save a Laguna Beach, California landmark gay bar, the Boom Boom Room.
In 2008 he founded Californians Against Hate, now Rights Equal Rights and led boycotts of four of the biggest donors to California's Proposition 8. He successfully settled three of those boycotts. Immediately after Prop 8 passed, Fred called for the State of California to investigate The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormon Church) and later the states of Maine, Iowa, Hawaii and California to investigate the rabidly anti-gay National Organization for Marriage (NOM). In the summer of 2012, he launched the ongoing global Boycott of Amway after its owners, the DeVos family, contributed $750,000 to NOM.
Fred's running for the Republican nomination for president in 2012 made him the first openly gay presidential candidate from a major political party in American history, helping to pave the way for Mayor Pete Buttigieg's run in 2020." [Fred Karger Biography, AC/NMAH Control File, AC1439]
During his presidential campaign Karger appeared on six ballots; New Hampshire, Michigan, Puerto Rico, Maryland, California, and Utah. He campaigned in over 30 states and received, "widespread praise for paving the way for future LGBT candidates." Karger has been interviewed on many local, national, and international television, radio, and webcast programs. His autobiography, Fred Who? was published in 2011.
Provenance:
Donated to the Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution by Fred Karger in November 2017.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
