Zoe Leonard. "Two Pairs" from Analogue, 1998-2007

The current photography show at the Humanities and Social Sciences Library, Eminent Domain: Contemporary Photography and the City, features---among others---the work of two major contemporary LGBT artists: Zoe Leonard and Glenn Ligon. The exhibition presents the work of five current photographers whose works attempt to capture the motion, scale, and texture of the modern city. Given the pivotal role played by urban areas in the formation of LGBT communities, it is no surprise that LGBT artists figure prominently. Zoe Leonard has had a wide-ranging career in photography, sculpture, film and video. Leonard’s work often subtly engages issues of gender and sexuality in ways that are surprising, thoughtful, and funny. Leonard was also a founding member of the Fierce Pussy artists collective, whose archives are in the Library’s Manuscripts and Archives Division. Fierce Pussy’s work was recently celebrated with an exhibition and book release at Printed Matter. The photographs in the exhibition are echoed by a text installation---Housing in New York: A Brief History, 2007---by Glenn Ligon that chronicles the concrete details of his own sense of home and urban space as a New York City native. Ligon is widely known for text-based paintings and media installations dealing with race and masculinity in American culture.

Going through the exhibition, I was struck by how far their work was from anything that might usually be thought of as a gay or lesbian aesthetic, while simultaneously taking  LGBT lives as a given. Leonard and Ligon seem to share a sense of human fragility and the intimate impact that economic forces have on the most ordinary details of people’s lives.  They also share a tough and tender kind of realism. The exhibition is beautiful, so make sure to take a look while it lasts.