This Elegance

By Derrick Austin

Interweaving the sacred and the erotic, This Elegance engages with visual arts through the concept of sacra conversazione ("sacred conversation"), a style of Renaissance painting that imagines divine communion across time and space. Here, artists, thinkers, and pop icons commune in a similar sacred dialogue--Kathleen Collins, Andr Leon Talley, Richmond Barth , Lyle Ashton Harris, Juan de Pareja, Janelle Mon e, Symone, and others appear as guiding spirits and creative kin.

For a Black, queer person so often dislocated from time and place, pleasure becomes an act of resistance--a grounding in the now. This Elegance is a love song--an offering to Black artistry, a tribute to visionary lives, and a testament to the power of beauty in even our most precarious moments.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1960145940
• ISBN13: 9781960145949
• Release Date: May 2026
• Publisher: BOA Editions
• Length: 85 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.8" x 8.7"