Khalik Allah 125th and Lexington

Khalik Allah’s startling photographs and provocative films are centered around the people who inhabit the corner of 125th St and Lexington Ave in Harlem. Allah documents Harlem with such honesty and reverence for the people that his work straddles that border of subjective/objective involvement. Allah involves himself in the document, not just photographically, or in his films, but in the lives of his characters. Allah relates to those that wander the streets at 4am. The marginalized who smoke K2 (a mixture of herbs, spices or shredded plant material that is typically sprayed with a synthetic compound chemically similar to THC) and exist in the shadows. These shadows are where Allah dwells, an insider looking in and finding beauty in what society deems just the opposite.