Keith Boykin, a former Clinton White House aide, syndicated columnist, and AIDS activist, breaks new ground by going beyond the hype with the first responsible, eye-opening look at the down low sensation. Unlike all previous accounts on the topic, Beyond the Down Low refreshingly presents the DL not merely as a problem of gay and bisexual men living in the shadows and endangering women, but more broadly as a telling example of the African-American community's overall failure to engage in critical but uncomfortable conversations about sexuality. Boykin details how the virtual silence from black leaders on sex matters has helped to create an environment where gay and bisexual men feel compelled to lead double lives. Meanwhile, the dialogue that has occurred both inside and out of African-American circles encourages an unhealthy battle of the sexes, ignores the complexities of the closet, demonizes homosexuality and bisexuality, disempowers women from personal responsibility to protect themselves from STDs, and misdirects public resources and attention at vilifying down low men.

Contemporary artist Keith Edmier has long been exploring the impact of public history on personal memory in his work. The pop icons of his youth-- such as Evel Knievel-- were seminal figures in the developing artist's psyche. Perhaps the most important figure in the artist's pantheon of inspiration is Farrah Fawcett. The object of many teen boys' affections in the 1970s, Fawcett was a particularly resonant figure for Edmier as she herself was an artist, a fact that he discovered in an issue of the teen magazine Dynamite.

In August 2000, after Edmier extended a formal invitation to the actress to join him in making a work of art, Edmier and Fawcett began what would become a two-year collaboration which produced several sculptures (including two large-scale nude sculptures of each other) and numerous photographs and drawings. The results of this extraordinary project are chronicled in this volume.

The essay by Lynn Zelevansky, curator of contemporary and modern art at Los Angeles County Museum of Art where the exhibition of the work debuted, explores other potent artist/muse pairings and how the traditional hierarchy of this kind of undertaking has been eroded by Fawcett's full participation in the project. She also considers how their project engages pop culture, writing: "...[Fawcett] and Edmier have reminded us about the world of images we inhabit, where it can be difficult to tell the real from the imaginary. They have held a magnifying glass to the relationship between fantasy and reality, celebrity and fan, allowing us to understand something about the way that mass culture impacts lives and shapes memory."