Deana Lawson / edited by Peter Eleey and Eva Respini ; with contributions by Kimberly Juanita Brown, Tina M. Campt, Peter Eleey, Alexander Nemerov, Eva Respini, and Greg Tate, and a conversation between Deana Lawson and Deborah Willis.
Edition:
First edition, second printing.
Publisher:
Institute of Contemporary Art ;
Copyright Date:
2022
Description:
144 pages : illustrations (chiefly color), portraits ; 30 cm
Catalog to accompany the exhibition held: ICA/Boston, Massachusetts, November 4, 2021 - February 27, 2022; MoMA PS1, Long Island City, NY, April 14 - September 5, 2022; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA, October 7, 2022 - February 19, 2023--Colophon. "Index of works": page 129. Includes bibliographical references (pages 132-133).
Contents:
Directors' foreword / Kate Fowle and Jill Medvedow -- The intimacy of strangers / Tina M. Campt -- Deana Lawson's family album / Eva Respini -- The duplicating vision of Deana Lawson / Kimberly Juanita Brown -- Deana Lawson's gods / Alexander Nemerov -- Of Diogenes and the brothers the brothers the sisters the jungle the sister Deana the jungle / Greg Tate -- Heavy curtains / Peter Eleey -- Conversation / Deana Lawson and Deborah Willis -- Index of works -- Selected exhibition history / compiled by Anni Pullagura and Ellen Tani, with Sydney King -- Selected bibliography / compiled by Anni Pullagura and Ellen Tani, with Sydney King.
Summary:
The first scholarly publication on the artist Deana Lawson, surveying fifteen years of her photography, will be published to accompany the first comprehensive museum survey exhibition featuring Lawson's artwork. A singular voice in contemporary photography, Lawson has been investigating and challenging conventional representations of black identities in the African American and African diaspora for over fifteen years. Her work samples numerous photographic languages, including the family album, studio portraiture, staged tableaux, documentary pictures, and found images, creating narratives of family, love, and desire. Lawson's photographs are made in collaboration with her subjects, who are sometimes nude, embracing, and directly confronting the camera, destabilizing the notion of photography as a passively voyeuristic medium. Whether in posed photographs or assembled collages, Lawson's works channel broader ideas about personal and social histories of black life, love, sexuality, family, and spiritual beliefs. This publication will include selections from Lawson's personal family photographs and archives of vernacular images that have profoundly informed her work.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.