Ain't Misbehavin', 2022, Video
- Medium
- Two-channel video installation with wallpaper.
- Dimensions
- Dimensions variable. Duration: 14 minutes.








For the work Ain’t Misbehavin’, 2022, Boyce has re-worked the performance documentation from her exhibition, Six Acts, 2018, to re-stage a sense of reverie and abundance that characterises the other performances of that night by Lasana Shabazz and the drag collective Family Gorgeous (Cheddar Gorgeous, Anna Phylactic, Venus Vienna and Liquorice Black).
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Six Acts was a project that attracted world-wide attention for the take down of a Pre-Raphaelite painting ‘Hylas and the Nymphs’, (1896), by John William Waterhouse held by Manchester Art Gallery.
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In Ain’t Misbehavin’, Lasana Shabazz begins the films in front of a painted portrait of a black male, the first work of art to enter the collection of the Manchester Art Gallery in the nineteenth century. The painting by James Northcote 'Othello, The Moor of Venice', (1826) was originally titled ‘The Moor’ meaning simply ‘The Black’. The anonymity inherent in the title was changed after museum curators discovered that it was a portrait of the celebrated 19th-century Shakespearean actor Ira Aldridge, who had a prolific career first in the US where he was born, and then in the UK.
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Shabazz appears in drag, a performative mode that is often associated with Shakespearean theatre when females were forbidden to publicly appear on stage and, instead, males played female roles. Aldridge, as a performer, was also known to appear as a black-face minstrel – a racist caricature of African Americans typically performed by white actors – he also performed in white-face when he played white characters on stage. Shabazz delves into these complex and contradictory identity formations as he interacts with the invited audience, who are coerced into responding to his uncomfortable prompts.
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Across both projects, transgressions proliferate. They un-mask and resist binaries, instead releasing historical constraints and conditions, whether that is about the imagined certainties of race or gender or sexuality – and criss-cross between the everyday and the extraordinary.
Wallpaper series

Clapping Wallpaper 2
2024

Coloured Wallpaper
2023

Braided Hair Wallpaper
2023
FEELING HER WAY
2022

Ain't Misbehavin'
2022

We move in her way
2017

Just One Minute More
2016-2022

Devotional Wallpaper and Placards
2008 - 2018

Crop Over
2007

Lover's Rock
1998

Head I (Skin) / Head II (Dread)
1995

They're Almost Like Twins
1995

Clapping Wallpaper
1994
Related theme: Sound / Singing

Put Your Hands Together
2024

BENEVOLENCE
2024

On My Way
2022
FEELING HER WAY
2022

In the Mix: Shirley Songs
2022

In the Mix: Skunk Sputnik
2022

Ain't Misbehavin'
2022

In the Mix: Hippy Liberty
2022

In the Mix: Disciples Together
2022

In the Mix: Mel & Kim Respect
2022

In the Mix: Alexandra B’s Dress
2022

Miss Elizabeth Welch 1933 – 1940 / a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square
2021

Shirley Bassey / Goldfinger
2021

Sade / The Sweetest Taboo
2021

Sheila Chandra / Ever so lonely MONSOON
2021

Polystyrene / X-ray Spex OH BONDAGE UP YOURS!
2021

P. P. Arnold / Just call me angel of the morning
2021

Six Acts
2018

Just One Minute More
2016-2022

Exquisite Cacophony
2015

Plastic
2013

Move
2013

Gather:Justicia
2010

Is this Love That I’m Feeling?
2010

Oh Adelaide (with Ain Bailey)
2010

Taken
2009

Drift
2008

Devotional Wallpaper and Placards
2008 - 2018

For you, only you
2007

1930s to 1960s – The Rivington Place Portfolio
2006

Devotional II
2005

Devotional, 2004
2004

Lover's Rock
1998
Related theme: Performance

BENEVOLENCE
2024

Put Your Hands Together
2024

Yes, I Hear You
2022

In the Mix: Alexandra B’s Dress
2022
FEELING HER WAY
2022

In the Mix: Shirley Songs
2022

In the Mix: Skunk Sputnik
2022

Ain't Misbehavin'
2022

In the Mix: Hippy Liberty
2022

In the Mix: Disciples Together
2022

Family Gorgeous Smudged
2022

In the Mix: Mel & Kim Respect
2022

On My Way
2022

Sheila Chandra / Ever so lonely MONSOON
2021

Sade / The Sweetest Taboo
2021

Shirley Bassey / Goldfinger
2021

Miss Elizabeth Welch 1933 – 1940 / a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square
2021

P. P. Arnold / Just call me angel of the morning
2021

Polystyrene / X-ray Spex OH BONDAGE UP YOURS!
2021

The Audition
1997 - printed 2018

Six Acts
2018

We move in her way
2017

Just One Minute More
2016-2022

Paper Tiger Whisky Soap Theatre (Dada Nice)
2016

Exquisite Cacophony
2015

Move
2013

Dance of Belém
2011

Gather:Justicia
2010

Oh Adelaide (with Ain Bailey)
2010

Taken
2009

Devotional Wallpaper and Placards
2008 - 2018

Drift
2008

Crop Over
2007

For you, only you
2007

Exquisite Tension
2006

1930s to 1960s – The Rivington Place Portfolio
2006

Devotional II
2005

Devotional, 2004
2004
Related theme: Participatory / Collaboration

BENEVOLENCE
2024

Yes, I Hear You
2022

Ain't Misbehavin'
2022
FEELING HER WAY
2022

Family Gorgeous Smudged
2022

The Audition in Colour
1997 - printed 2020

In the Castle of My Skin
2020 - 2021

The Audition
1997 - printed 2018

Six Acts
2018

We move in her way
2017

Paper Tiger Whisky Soap Theatre (Dada Nice)
2016

Exquisite Cacophony
2015

Move
2013

Dance of Belém
2011

Gather:Justicia
2010

Oh Adelaide (with Ain Bailey)
2010

Taken
2009

Devotional Wallpaper and Placards
2008 - 2018

Drift
2008

Crop Over
2007

For you, only you
2007

Exquisite Tension
2006

Devotional II
2005

Devotional, 2004
2004

Tongues
1997

Untitled (Kiss)
1995

They're Almost Like Twins
1995