The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art
11.09 - 18.01.2026
Athi-Patra Ruga will present a major solo exhibition, ‘Lord, I gotta keep on (movin’)’ at The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art in New York.
Opening in September 2025, the exhibition showcases Ruga’s rigorous exploration of mythology, power dynamics, and the emancipatory possibilities of queer Black femme culture through performance, film, painting, textile, and glass works. Saint Joseph does a death drop, Desire Marea poses as the late photographer Rotimi Fani-Kayode, nude men wear the masks of white super stars Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, and Marilyn Monroe. ‘Lord, I gotta keep on (movin’)’ centers on Ruga’s ongoing interrogation of myths—their creation, unraveling, and relationship to power and liberation. The exhibition spans nearly two decades of the artist’s practice, featuring works from 2008 to 2025 that showcase his evolution across video, painting, textile, and sculptural media.
“The ‘movin’ of the title is not only about perseverance—but about the actual body in motion, and the power of large-scale procession,” explains Ruga. “It’s how we mark marriages, funerals, and protests: how we walk the streets and walk a ball. We move into exile and back again, transformed. To keep moving is to know that when we reach a destination, that our horizon is still ahead: that our own procession, along with our ancestors, always continues.”
Athi-Patra Ruga
