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POMERANZ COLLECTION

ZOE LEONARD

Untitled (Bathroom Graffiti) / Two Toilets / Untitled (Bathroom graffiti)
1994
Platinum-palladium prints, printed 1997
10 x 15 cm each
Printer's proof from an edition of 5
Inv. Nr. 63

Born in 1961 in Liberty, New York, USA
Lives and works in New York City, New York, USA

Zoe Leonard’s photographs are in line with the American documentary tradition (Walker Evans, Robert Frank…) of picturing the extraordinary in ordinary scenes. Since 1979, she travels through cities, from streets to museums, in search of signs that might give some insight into their contrasts, similarities and inter-relationships. With her records of mundane events, she portrays our society at a precise moment and, in a kind of archaeological way, she examines what our objects and urban landscape say of it. Her predominantly black-and-white photographs are subversive in their questioning, casual in their approach, incisive in what they reveal. They celebrate the power of vision and subjective truth. Her engagements in Act Up New York since the beginnings of the movement and in the lesbian collective Fierce Pussy is also visible in some of her photographs very subtly evoking sexuality or gender issues, by showing what shouldn’t be seen. As in the triptych of photographs portraying a pair of toilets flanked by pictures of macho commentaries written on walls.