Lauren Halsey: The Roof Garden Commission

This compact book documents Lauren Halsey’s the eastside of south central los angeles hieroglyph prototype architecture (I) (2022), the tenth commission to be featured on the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The monumental site-specific work, which could be viewed on the museum’s rooftop and from Central Park, brings together the artist’s interests in ancient Egyptian and Afrofuturist iconography, visionary architecture, and vernacular signage and language drawn from the Los Angeles cityscape. Inspired by the Temple of Dendur and other artifacts in the Met’s collection, its Hathor columns and sculptural sphinxes are guardian figures bearing the faces of members of Halsey’s family and community. In addition to photographs of the installation, the publication includes a foreword by Met director Max Hollein, an essay by curator Abraham Thomas discussing the installation in relation to Halsey’s overall practice, and an interview between the artist and poet Douglas Kearney.