Quil Lemons - Quiladelphia

The new IDEA book is Quil Lemons’ first book QUILADELPHIA. A decade in the making, this is a mammoth mega photographic documentation and exploration of black masculinity. The title is a portmanteau, a dedication to Lemons himself and his hometown. However, Quil expands: "It’s not simply a reference to Philadelphia—it’s an acknowledgment that everything I am was forged by the city, by my family, and by the people who raised me. I wanted to honor what Philadelphia gave me: grit, ambition, and an understanding of boundaries. As a kid, I used to think Philadelphians were aggressive. As I got older, I realized they were simply clear about where their boundaries began and ended. A Philadelphian will let you know exactly where you stand. Long story long, that’s how we got the book, and that’s how we got here." This is from Quil’s conversation with Santigold, a fellow Philly native. Other texts include a foreword by Brontez Purnell, an essay penned by Quil himself titled African American Trade – What Is Trade?, and a big, insightful, and tender conversation between Quil and Lyle Ashton Harris about blackness, queerness, gender, love, art, and society. And then of course we have the best of Lemons’ work over the past 10 years. Of which, there is A LOT. There is colour. There is black and white. There are guns. There are the young, the old, the buff, and the slight. QUILADELPHIA makes more than apparent, with the most style, that there is no one black masculinity. "I’ve always been interested in softening dominant ideas of Black masculinity. That’s part of why I chose to depict vulnerability, intimacy, and states of being that are rarely centered. I wanted to challenge the assumption that masculinity only becomes meaningful when it’s performing power. The same curiosity informed images involving tucking and bodily transformation. What interested me wasn’t provocation. It was beauty. It was asking questions about masculinity and femininity, pain and pleasure, performance and authenticity. There were moments when viewers read those images in entirely different ways than I expected, and I loved that. It revealed how unstable these categories really are." (Quil in conversation with Lyle Ashton Harris) 2026 Softcover with dustjacket 25 x 23 cm 160 pages First edition of 500 © IDEA