Deana Lawson (1979) is an American artist, educator, and photographer based in
Brooklyn, New York
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
.
Her work is primarily concerned with intimacy, family, spirituality, sexuality, and Black aesthetics.
Lawson has been praised for her ability to communicate the nuances of
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
experience: "Lawson’s ''oeuvre'' explores intimacy, affinity, sexuality and relationships.
She has work held in the
International Center for Photography collections. Her photographs have been exhibited in a number of museums and galleries including the
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
,
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...
, and the
Art Institute of Chicago.
Lawson was the winner of the
Hugo Boss Prize The Hugo Boss Prize was an award given every other year to an artist (or group of artists) working in any medium, anywhere in the world. Upon its establishment in 1996, it distinguished itself from other art awards because it has no restrictions on ...
in 2020 "for significant achievement in contemporary art". A solo exhibition of her work, ''The Hugo Boss Prize 2020: Deana Lawson, Centropy'' is on view May 7-October 11, 2021 at the
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...
.
Biography
Lawson was born in 1979 in
Rochester, New York
Rochester () is a city in the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, and Yonkers, with a population of 211,328 at the 2020 United States census. Located in W ...
.
She received her B.F.A in 2001 in photography from
Pennsylvania State University, and her M.F.A. in photography from the
Rhode Island School of Design
The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase the ...
(RISD) in 2004.
Regarding her second year at
Penn State, Lawson said, "I reached an early crossroads—either I was going to continue with a business degree or I was going to jump off that moving train and become an artist. I jumped and never looked back."
Lawson has two children with her former husband, artist
Aaron Gilbert.
Teaching
Lawson was an Assistant Professor of Photography at
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...
in
Princeton, New Jersey
Princeton is a municipality with a borough form of government in Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton and Princeton Township, both of whi ...
beginning in 2012.
In 2021, she was named the inaugural Dorothy Krauklis ’78 Professor of Visual Arts in
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...
’s Lewis Center for the Arts. She has also taught at
California Institute of the Arts
The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a private art university in Santa Clarita, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for students of both ...
(CalArts),
International Center for Photography,
California College of the Arts
California College of the Arts (CCA) is a private art school in San Francisco, California. It was founded in Berkeley, California in 1907 and moved to a historic estate in Oakland, California in 1922. In 1996 it opened a second campus in Sa ...
(CCA), and
Rhode Island School of Design
The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase the ...
.
Work
Lawson credits her interest in taking photographs to
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
photographers like
Carrie Mae Weems
Carrie Mae Weems (born April 20, 1953) is an American artist working in text, fabric, audio, digital images and installation video, and is best known for her photography. She achieved prominence through her early 1990s photographic project ''Th ...
and
Renee Cox.
During her undergraduate years, Lawson was shocked at the lack of scholarship surrounding photographers of color. This led her to learn more about black artists, like
Lorna Simpson
Lorna Simpson (born August 13, 1960) is an American photographer and multimedia artist. She came to prominence in the 1980s and 1990s with artworks such as ''Guarded Conditions'' and ''Square Deal''. Simpson is most well-known for her work in c ...
, whose work inspired her to pursue photography as a medium: "Just to have that model--to realize that not only did I like to make pictures but that I could actually do this, you know, was absolutely important to reaffirm myself as an artist".
Lawson's highly formalist photographs are distinguishable by their meticulous staging, intimate composition, and attention to black cultural symbols. Her photos are highly staged, with an emphasis on "the strangely potent components of black interiors". While referring to her subjects as "family", her models are more often than not strangers she meets randomly in public spaces.
In an artist statement, Lawson writes: "My work negotiates a knowledge of selfhood through a profoundly corporeal dimension; the photographs speaking to the ways that sexuality, violence, family, and social status may be written, sometimes literally, upon the body."
In 2011, ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'' Jessie Wender described Lawson's portraits as "intimate and unexpected".
In Wender's interview with Lawson, the photographer discussed her inspirations, including "vintage nudes,
Sun Ra
Le Sony'r Ra (born Herman Poole Blount, May 22, 1914 – May 30, 1993), better known as Sun Ra, was an American jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, and poet known for his experimental music, "cosmic" philosophy, prolific ou ...
,
Nostrand Ave., sexy mothers,
juke joint
Juke joint (also jukejoint, jook house, jook, or juke) is the vernacular term for an informal establishment featuring music, dancing, gambling, and drinking, primarily operated by African Americans in the southeastern United States. A juke joint ...
s, cousins, leather bound family albums, gnarled wigs, Dana Lawson
er sister the color purple,
The Grizzly Man, M.J., oval portraits,
Arthur Jafa, thrift shops,
Breakfast at Tiffany's,
acrylic nails, weaves on pavement,
Aaron Gilbert er former husband the A train,
Tell My Horse, typewriters,
Notorious B.I.G., fried fish, and lace curtains".
Formally, Lawson said, "Formally the images are unified by a clear directorial voice. The subject's pose, lighting, and environment are all carefully considered."
Lawson has stated that her most challenging or successful work is ''The Garden'', which references the Eden scene in
Hieronymus Bosch
Hieronymus Bosch (, ; born Jheronimus van Aken ; – 9 August 1516) was a Dutch/ Netherlandish painter from Brabant. He is one of the most notable representatives of the Early Netherlandish painting school. His work, generally oil on o ...
's painting ''
The Garden of Earthly Delights
''The Garden of Earthly Delights'' is the modern title given to a triptych oil painting on oak panel painted by the Early Netherlandish master Hieronymus Bosch, between 1490 and 1510, when Bosch was between 40 and 60 years old. It has b ...
''.
In 2014 Lawson traveled to
Congo to look for references for her vision of Eden, and this journey led her to the small village called
Gemena
Gemena is the capital city of Sud-Ubangi Province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It has a population of 350,511 (2017). The city has a large airport and hosts the 10th integrated Brigade of the new FARDC since 2007.
Mobutu Sese Seko
...
, which became the setting for ''The Garden''.
While many of Lawson's photographs are taken in New York, she has also photographed subjects in
Louisiana
Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...
,
Haiti,
Jamaica
Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...
,
Ethiopia
Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...
, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
She has expressed the hope that through travel, her work can reflect the ways in which black culture is not confined by physical boundaries.
In November 2015, Lawson was commissioned by ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...
'' to photograph the aftermath of the
Charleston church shooting in
Charleston, South Carolina by mass murderer Dylann Roof
Dylann Storm Roof (born April 3, 1994) is an American white supremacist, neo-Nazi, and mass murderer convicted of perpetrating the Charleston church shooting on June 17, 2015, in the U.S. state of South Carolina. During a Bible study at Ema ...
. Steven Nelson, Dean of the Center for Advanced Study in the Arts at the
National Gallery of Art, observes that although the photographs document the aftermath rather than the massacre itself, her journalistic photographs for ''Time'' nonetheless "dovetail with images that have depicted violence against black people."
In 2016, Lawson's photograph, ''Binky & Tony Forever'', was used as the cover art for ''
Freetown Sound'', the third album by
Dev Hynes
Devonté Hynes (born David Joseph Michael Hynes, 23 December 1985), also known as Blood Orange and formerly Lightspeed Champion, is an English singer, songwriter, record producer and director based in New York City. From 2004 to 2006, Hynes was ...
for
Blood Orange
The blood orange is a variety of orange ( ''Citrus'' × ''sinensis'') (also referred to as raspberry orange) with crimson, almost blood-colored flesh.
The distinctive dark flesh color is due to the presence of anthocyanins, a family of polyp ...
.
The photograph is set in Lawson's bedroom and depicts young love, with an emphasis on the female figure—"the female gaze, and her space, and her love", in Lawson's words.
Lawson's large scale photography, ''Ring Bearer'' (2016) was featured in the 2017
Whitney Biennial
The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art, typically by young and lesser known artists, on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, United States. The event began as an annual exhibition ...
.
The movie ''
Queen & Slim
''Queen & Slim'' is a 2019 American romantic road crime drama film directed by Melina Matsoukas (in her feature directorial debut) and with a screenplay by Lena Waithe from a story by James Frey and Waithe. The film's story centers on a young c ...
'' (2019) was inspired by Lawson's photography, in capturing an intimate portrayal of black experience and the stylized home interiors. In 2019, Lawson photographed
Melina Matsoukas, the director of the film.
Lawson was included in the 2019 traveling exhibition ''Young, Gifted, and Black: The Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection of Contemporary Art''.
Lawson's first full-scale museum survey was organized in 2021 by the
Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston
The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) is an art museum and exhibition space located in Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America. The museum was founded as the Boston Museum of Modern Art in 1936. Since then it has gone through multiple na ...
and traveled to
MoMA PS1
MoMA PS1 is a contemporary art institution located in Court Square in the Long Island City neighborhood in the borough of Queens, New York City. In addition to its exhibitions, the institution organizes the Sunday Sessions performance series, the ...
. The show included assemblages created by the artist with crystals in addition to photographs.
Publications
*''Deana Lawson''. Edited by Peter Eleey & Eva Respini. London:
Mack, 2021. . Includes essays by Eva Respini and Peter Eleey, Kimberly Juanita Brown,
Tina Campt
Tina Campt is Roger S. Berlind ’52 Professor of Humanities at Princeton University. Campt previously held faculty positions as Owen F. Walker Professor of Humanities at Brown University, Director of the Barnard Center for Research on Women and A ...
,
Alexander Nemerov,
Greg Tate
Gregory Stephen Tate (October 14, 1957December 7, 2021) was an American writer, musician, and producer. A long-time critic for ''The Village Voice'', Tate focused particularly on African-American music and culture, helping to establish hip-h ...
, and a conversation between Lawson and
Deborah Willis. Accompanies an exhibition at ICA/Boston, 2021/22; MoMA PS1, 2022; and High Museum of Art, 2022/23.
Awards
*Aaron Siskind Foundation, Individual Photographer's Fellowship grant, 2008–2009.
*
Guggenheim Fellowship from the
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation for her work in photography, 2013.
*Awarded the 2020 Hugo Boss Prize by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
Exhibitions
Solo exhibitions
* 2014 Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago, ''Deana Lawson: Mother Tongue''
* 2017 Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago, ''Deana Lawson''
* 2018 Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York, ''New Work''
*2018 Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, ''Forum 80: Deana Lawson''
*2018–2019 The Underground Museum, Los Angeles, ''Deana Lawson: Planes''
*2020 Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland, ''Deana Lawson: Centropy''
*2021 Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, ''The Hugo Boss Prize 2020: Deana Lawson, Centropy''
Group exhibitions
* 2013 Fitzroy Gallery, New York, ''Secession Secession''
* 2014 Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago, ''Rhona Hoffman Gallery at EXPO CHICAGO''
* 2015 Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago, ''evoking spirit: contemporary art in dialogue with keeping secrets''
* 2016 Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago, ''Group Exhibition: 40 Years Part 2: Gender. Race. Identity.''
* 2016 The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, ''Black Cowboy''
* 2017 Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York, United States, ''The 2017 Whitney Biennial''
*2018 Gordon Parks Foundation, New York, ''American'' ''Family: Derrick Adams and Deana Lawson''
*2018 RISD Museum, Providence, Rhode Island, ''The Phantom of Liberty''
References
External links
The Museum of Modern Art (New Photography 2011 for Deana Lawson)MoMA Audio interview with Deana LawsonDeana Lawson: Ruttenberg Contemporary Photography SeriesDeana Lawson , Carnegie Museum of Art
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lawson, Deana
Living people
1979 births
Princeton University faculty
Rhode Island School of Design alumni
Penn State College of Arts and Architecture alumni
Artists from Rochester, New York
African-American contemporary artists
American contemporary artists
Photographers from New York (state)
21st-century American photographers
21st-century American women photographers
African-American photographers
African-American academics
American women academics
21st-century African-American women
21st-century African-American artists
20th-century African-American people
20th-century African-American women