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Lennon, Lacey

American, b. 1988

BiographyPhotographing untrained actors, strangers, and family members in their homes or work places, Lacey Lennon uses the title Whitney as a stand-in name for the women she photographs. Interested in the implications of the gaze and the performative acts of photographing and being photographed, she considers the quick speed of the camera’s shutter as a fitting medium for creating images on the fleeting presence of self.

The images in the Museum of Contemporary Photography’s collection are centered around a fictional “secure house,” where Lennon imagines sex workers residing under the leadership and influence of male owners. In this world, women are trained in how to increase their economic value through a regiment of instruction and aesthetic modification. The concept of learning how to hone one’s sensuality and femininity for a male gaze connects Lennon’s thoughts on photography at large as a performative and fleeting act to larger concepts on representation. She states: “My images create a space, which holds these complexities of being - the space between free and not, determining and being determined.”

Lacey Lennon completed her MFA from Yale University (2018) and has been exhibited in the David Zwirner Gallery, NY (2018); and LTD Los Angeles, CA (2018). She was a runner-up for the MoCP’s 2018 Snider Prize.