FATHER FIGURE: SIGNED BY ZUN LEE

This exhibition poster is signed and numbered within an edition of 35. Size: 20 x 24 inches Zun Lee offers an intimate view into the daily lives of Black fathers with whom he has worked closely since 2011--men from the Bronx, Harlem, and Washington Heights who are often parenting in difficult economic and personal circumstances. Lee brings into focus the narratives of these men as caretakers, interrogating and dispelling stereotypes of Black masculinity and absent fathers. Father Figure reveals the heart and pangs of not just Black men as fathers, but more broadly the implicit struggles of being Black in America. Media and political pundits often use the myth of missing Black fathers to explain away widespread social issues such as mass incarceration, income inequality, chronic unemployment, and gun violence, rather than to bring forth national dialogues around the complex consequences of structural racism. Lee’s work frames the struggle of men who feel this perpetual weight squarely