This installation consists of three components: an archival pigment print “billboard,” a mid-century Spanish Colonial leather rocking chair, and a branding iron hanging ominously over the chair. The print is from a photograph of a site-specific installation Lee created for a solo exhibition about Black cowboys at SF Camerawork. The intention is to highlight the relationship between chattel and cattle. Enslaved Black people were considered property; as such, they were branded as if they were cattle. The original installation was made of Xeroxed prints that were copies of chemigrams Lee made using Vaseline, photo-sensitive paper, and darkroom processing chemicals. In the darkroom, he applied the Vaseline to the branding iron and then stamped it onto ten sheets of photo-sensitive paper. He selected eight unique compositions, scanned them, and then laser-printed them. He intuitively adhered them to a grid, let them dry, and then began applying the prints on top of the grid in a less structured manner, leaving the corners unglued.
Once dried, he began ripping and tearing the prints and reapplying the torn pieces to form the final composition. This process was intended to speak about the dark history of enslavement in the United States without directly showing the Black body in pain. The paper represents flesh. Vaseline, used as a resist in the making process, is often applied to treat burns and flesh wounds—an intentional choice. The chair is made of leather, or cowhide, again pointing to skin. The viewer is invited to sit in the chair, and as gravity leans them backward, they are directed to look up, where they are confronted with the active end of the branding iron, suspended by a rope and attached to that rope using what is called a “lynch pin. This installation is also a reference to Greek mythology and the Sword of Damocles, an allusion to the imminent and ever-present peril faced by those in positions of power. As for the form of the new archival pigment print, it has the same aspect ratio as a billboard, referencing the use of colonial language when we speak about marketing and advertising by calling it “branding.”