Leonard, Zoe

American, b. 1961 Liberty, NY

BiographyZoe Leonard works primarily with photography and installation using conceptual themes of gender, sexuality, migration, displacement, and nature. She describes her work as “instinctive,” stating in an interview with T Magazine that using a camera is “about being in the world and noting your relationship to it.” Leonard questions this relationship with the camera and the ways a narrative is composed through images by photographing the same subject from various angles or at different moments. This approach allows the subject to retain a sense of ongoing movement beyond the fixed reality of the photograph. An early exploration of this is seen in Untitled (1988), in the Museum of Contemporary Photography’s permanent collection. This image is part of Leonard’s late 1980s series of aerial photographs taken from airplane windows where she utilizes the elevated, distant vantage point to underline the artists’ complex position as observer, reporter, and interpreter. The perspective alludes to surveillance, further highlighting Leonard’s ongoing interrogation into to impact of visual culture on sociological perception. The image was part of the Renaissance Society Photography Portfolio, which was produced in 2013 as a compilation of twelve prints by renowned artists who previously held solo exhibitions at the University of Chicago.

Zoe Leonard began taking photographs in New York City as a teenager. She was active in AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) and various queer feminist art collectives, and began to receive national and international recognition in 1992, upon her participation in Documenta IX, followed by the circulation of her poem, “I want a president.” The poem is both a personal lament and a call to action, inspired by her friend, Eileen Myles, entering the presidential race against George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Ross Perot. In the piece, Leonard critiques the homogeny of the government’s elected officials through repeated “I want” statements that express her desire for diverse representation. Her social activism extended through the 1990s as her work was influenced by the AIDS-related losses of several close friends.

Zoe Leonard participated in the 1993, 1997, and 2014 Whitney Biennials and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2020. She is included in permanent collections of Tate Gallery, London; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Museum of Modern Art, New York; among many others.

[1] Courteau, Rose. “Zoe Leonard Goes with the Flow.” The New York Times, October 11, 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/11/t-magazine/zoe-leonard-al-rio.html.