News / Deana Lawson / Museum Exhibitions

On View

ICP at 50
From the Collection, 1845–2019

Through May 6, 2024
International Center of Photography, New York
www.icp.org

ICP at 50 is a thematic exploration of the many processes that comprise the history of the photographic medium, drawn from the International Center of Photography’s holdings. The institution was established in 1974 and the exhibition offers insight into the breadth and depth of its collection which spans from the nineteenth century to the present day. Work by Richard Avedon, Nan Goldin, Deana Lawson, and Andy Warhol is included.

On View

Giants
Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys

Through July 7, 2024
Brooklyn Museum, New York
www.brooklynmuseum.org

Giants, the first major exhibition of the Dean Collection, owned by musical icons Swizz Beatz (Kasseem Dean) and Alicia Keys, showcases a focused selection from the couple’s world-class holdings and spotlights works by Black diasporic artists. Expansive in their collecting habits, the Deans, both born and raised in New York, champion a philosophy of “artists supporting artists.” “Giants” refers to the renown of legendary artists, the impact of canon-expanding contemporary figures, and some of the monumental works in the collection. Work by Derrick Adams, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Titus Kaphar, and Deana Lawson is included.

Opening Soon

The Culture
Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century

June 28–September 29, 2024
Cincinnati Art Museum
www.cincinnatiartmuseum.org

Coinciding with the fiftieth anniversary of the birth of hip-hop, this exhibition aims to capture the influence the genre has had on contemporary society through more than ninety works. Including painting, sculpture, photography, installations, video, and fashion, the show is organized around six themes—language, brand, adornment, tribute, ascension, and pose. Work by Derrick Adams, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Deana Lawson is included. This exhibition originated at the Baltimore Museum of Art.

Closed

Deana Lawson in
Inheritance

June 28, 2023–February 4, 2024
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
whitney.org

Inheritance traces the profound impact of legacy and the past across familial, historical, and aesthetic lines. Featuring new acquisitions and rarely seen works by forty-three artists drawn from the Whitney’s own collection, the exhibition includes painting, sculpture, video, photography, and time-based media installations from the 1970s to the present day. This diverse array of works considers what has been passed on and how this may shift, change, or live again. Work by Deana Lawson is included.

Closed

Deana Lawson in
Put It This Way: (Re)Visions of the Hirshhorn Collection

August 2, 2022–September 4, 2023
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC
hirshhorn.si.edu

This exhibition unites almost a century of work by forty-nine women and nonbinary artists in a range of mediums drawn exclusively from the Hirshhorn’s permanent collection. Titled after a 1963 painting by American Pop artist Rosalyn Drexler, Put It This Way speaks to traditionally marginalized artists’ decisive and virtuosic achievements, and investigates a wide array of aesthetic, political, and historical concerns. The full-floor presentation is intended to encourage conversations around the significance of gender in creating and perceiving an artwork, the effects of categorizing artists by gender, and the museum’s role and responsibilities in stewarding the national collection of modern and contemporary art. Work by Deana Lawson is included.

Closed

The Culture
Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century

April 5–July 16, 2023
Baltimore Museum of Art
artbma.org

Coinciding with the fiftieth anniversary of the birth of hip-hop, this exhibition aims to capture the influence the genre has had on contemporary society through more than ninety works. Including painting, sculpture, photography, installations, video, and fashion, the show is organized around six themes—language, brand, adornment, tribute, ascension, and pose. Work by Derrick Adams, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Deana Lawson is included.

Closed

Deana Lawson

October 7, 2022–February 19, 2023
High Museum of Art, Atlanta
high.org

This exhibition is the first museum survey dedicated to the work of Deana Lawson, and includes a selection of photographs from 2004 to the present. For more than fifteen years, Lawson has been investigating and challenging conventional representations of Black life through a wide spectrum of photographic languages, such as the family album, studio portraiture, staged tableaux, documentary pictures, and appropriated images. Engaging acquaintances as well as strangers whom she meets on the street, Lawson meticulously poses her subjects in highly staged photographs that depict narratives of family, love, and desire, creating what the artist describes as “a mirror of everyday life, but also a projection of what I want to happen.” This exhibition originated at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston.

Closed

Deana Lawson in
Hold Me Closer

August 5–December 11, 2022
Des Moines Art Center, Iowa
desmoinesartcenter.org

Hold Me Closer showcases prints and photographs from the Des Moines Art Center’s permanent collection and explores the theme of intimacy in its myriad forms, including romantic, platonic, and familial. Coming off the heels of social distancing and isolation, the exhibition addresses different emotional tones associated with close interpersonal contact, including jubilation, bittersweetness, melancholy, and discomfort. Work by Deana Lawson is included.

Closed

Beyond the Frame

July 8–October 30, 2022
Museum of Contemporary Photography, Columbia College Chicago
www.mocp.org

Beyond the Frame explores highlights from the museum’s permanent collection of more than 16,500 works. Each gallery focuses on a recurring topic in photography, such as portraiture and the human subject, landscape and place, and staged and constructed images. Work by Deana Lawson and  Sally Mann is included.

Closed

Deana Lawson

April 14–September 5, 2022
MoMA PS1, New York
www.moma.org

This exhibition is the first museum survey dedicated to the work of Deana Lawson, and includes a selection of photographs from 2004 to the present. For more than fifteen years, Lawson has been investigating and challenging conventional representations of Black life through a wide spectrum of photographic languages, such as the family album, studio portraiture, staged tableaux, documentary pictures, and appropriated images. Engaging acquaintances as well as strangers whom she meets on the street, Lawson meticulously poses her subjects in highly staged photographs that depict narratives of family, love, and desire, creating what the artist describes as “a mirror of everyday life, but also a projection of what I want to happen.” This exhibition has traveled from the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston.

Closed

Deana Lawson

November 4, 2021–February 27, 2022
Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston
www.icaboston.org

This exhibition is the first museum survey dedicated to the work of Deana Lawson, and includes a selection of photographs from 2004 to the present. For more than fifteen years, Lawson has been investigating and challenging conventional representations of Black life through a wide spectrum of photographic languages, such as the family album, studio portraiture, staged tableaux, documentary pictures, and appropriated images. Engaging acquaintances as well as strangers whom she meets on the street, Lawson meticulously poses her subjects in highly staged photographs that depict narratives of family, love, and desire, creating what the artist describes as “a mirror of everyday life, but also a projection of what I want to happen.”

Closed

The Hugo Boss Prize 2020
Deana Lawson, Centropy

May 7–October 11, 2021
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
www.guggenheim.org

In this exhibition, large-scale photographs by Deana Lawson, some of which are embedded with holograms, are arrayed in a dense constellation that surrounds a spectral rendering of a torus—a three-dimensional shape formed by a circle rotated around a central axis. As such, the installation draws on the thermodynamic concept of centropy, a term that describes how the electrification of matter leads to regeneration and harmonious order. The same impulse of renewal through creative energy is central to Lawson’s vision, in which her subjects are figured as ineffably splendid, occupying a world that they command absolutely. This exhibition is organized on the occasion of the Hugo Boss Prize, which Lawson won in 2020.

Closed

Deana Lawson
Centropy

June 9–October 11, 2020
Kunsthalle Basel
www.kunsthallebasel.ch

Centropy features new works by Deana Lawson, including a group of large-scale photographs, holograms, 16mm films, a video, and several installations of small snapshot photos, some printed on mirrors and installed alongside crystal-encrusted mirrors. With these carefully staged yet intensely intimate images of the African diaspora in the United States, Brazil, and elsewhere, Lawson creates powerful photographic portraits of contemporary Black life.

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Whitney Biennial 2017

March 17–June 11, 2017
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
whitney.org

The Whitney Biennial was established in 1932 by the museum’s founder, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, to chart developments in art in the United States. The 2017 edition arrives at a time rife with racial tensions, economic inequities, and polarizing politics. Throughout the exhibition, artists challenge the viewer to consider how these realities affect our senses of self and community. The biennial features sixty-three individuals and collectives whose work takes a wide variety of forms, from painting and installation to activism and video-game design. Work by Deana Lawson and Jordan Wolfson is included.