Zoe Leonard
Works
34 gelatin silver prints
35,6 × 50 cm each
Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas. Photo: Alex Marks
Gelatin silver print
60,6 × 43,8 cm
Gelatin silver print
60,5 × 43,8 cm
Gelatin silver print
92,5 × 65 cm
Two silver gelatine prints
40 × 33 cm
Gelatin silver print
70 × 50 cm
Gelatin Silver print
60 × 86 cm
Gelatin Silver print
40,6 × 56,8 cm
Gelatin Silver print
34,9 × 49,5 cm
Gelatin silver print
27,8 × 33,9 cm
Gelatin silver print
27,8 × 33,9 cm
C-Print
55,9 × 47 cm
C-Print
55,9 × 47 cm
C-print
50,8 × 73,6 cm
Gelatin silver print
31,8 × 44,9 cm
Biography
Zoe Leonard was born in 1961 in Liberty, New York. She lives and works in New York.
She works with Galleria Raffaella Cortese since 2001.
She works with photography, sculptures and installations in a conceptual and a poetic view on the world; often questioning the evolution of society. During the Eighties and Nineties she was activist with ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) and the queer activist art collectives Gang and Fierce Pussy. Several works by Leonard stemmed from the feeling of loss, also derived from friends’ death caused by AIDS. Fundamental themes in her research are the urban and natural landscapes and their contrasts, personal and collective memories, migration, gender. Her work is able to make the viewer rethink the act of looking itself, how moments and situations can compose a narration.
“[…] I think the work is instinctive.” For Leonard a photograph “[…] is a subjective view. It’s a picture. […] It’s an object. It’s not reality. It’s not truth. It’s a work on paper and I made it. This is my truth. And my truth is no more true than anyone else’s.”. Through her works one can see how the act of observing can be dense and every moment anew.
She has taken part in several solo exhibitions such as: Zoe Leonard: Al río / To the River, Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas (2024); Zoe Leonard: View from Below, Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada (2024); Excerpts from Al río/To the River, Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Milan (2023); Al río/To the River, Museum of Contemporary Art, Australia, Sidney (2023); Al Rio/To the River, Mudam, The Contemporary Art Museum of Luxembourg, Luxembourg City / Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris (2022); Survey, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York / MOCA, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2018); I want a president, High Line Art, New York (2016); Zoe Leonard: Analogue, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2015); Photographs, Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna (2009); You See I am here after all, Dia:Beacon, New York (2008); Photographs, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid (2008); Photographs, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Zurich (2007); Vienna Secession, Vienna (1997); Kunsthalle Basel, Basel (1997).
A selected list of group shows include: A show of affection: Collection Constellation 1, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Winterthur (2024); All in! Re-Designing Democracy, Bundeskhunstalle, Bonn (2024); Exposé·es’, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2023); Prelude. Poetic Intention, MACBA, Barcelona (2022); Arcimboldo Face to Face, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz (2021); Among the Trees, Hayward Gallery, London (2020); Queer Forms, Katherine E. Nash Gallery, University of Minnesota, Minnesota (2019); Histories of our time. On Collective and Personal Narratives, Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel (2019); The Warmth of Other Suns: Stories of Global Displacement, The Phillips Collection, Washington (2019); Carnegie International, 57th Edition, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (2018); The Restless Earth, La Triennale di Milano, Milan (2017); U_nfinished: Thoughts Left Visible_, The Met Breuer, New York (2016); L’image papillon, Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg (2013).
She took part in Documenta IX (1992) and XII (2007); Whitney Biennials 1993, 1997, 2014.
Gallery Exhibitions
Public exhibitions
Press
Publications
