"Similar to how she uses the Polaroids to layer information and draw her subjects out of the distance that inevitably comes with formalism, Lawson places her photographs on top of the historical past of the museum itself. Not only are her portraits a celebration of black subjectivity in the United States, but they expose the narrative of black displacement and racial violence that the Netherlands have yet to fully reckon with. Her subjects not only return the gaze, but expand beyond the frame as though resisting thematisation."
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