Deana Lawson’s Intimate Portraits Invent New Truths about Her Subjects
Installation view of “Deana Lawson,” 2022, at MoMA PS1. Photo by Steven Paneccasio. Courtesy of MoMA PS1.
Deana Lawson’s portraits of Black subjects are aggressively intimate. She uses both the scale and composition of her photographs to lure audiences into her tableaus, which typically feature subjects in a domestic setting, surrounded by personal objects that reveal insight into thow they live. In some of her works, we encounter subjects in the nude lounging against a couch, stairs, a bare mattress, or simply on the floor. Despite the perceived vulnerability, Lawson’s subjects confront the viewer, staring us down in active encounters that reject photography’s ability to flatten subjects.
Lawson’s first museum survey, simply titled “Deana Lawson” and on view at MoMA PS1 through September 5th, arrives in New York after premiering at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, last year; it will travel to the High Museum in October. The exhibition covers Lawson’s career over an 18-year period and features over 50 pieces, including her latest work, which was part of her Hugo Boss Prize solo exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in 2020. Lawson is the first photographer to be named a recipient of the award since its 1996 inception. Lawson’s portraits crystalize the complicated histories of the camera as a tool of objectification and subjugation of Black individuals across the diaspora. She recognizes that the camera is incapable of authenticating subjects against those totalizing images, and instead embraces the camera’s capacity to invent new truths about people.
Installation view of “Deana Lawson,” 2022, at MoMA PS1. Photo by Steven Paneccasio. Courtesy of MoMA PS1.
At MoMA PS1, audiences experience the full evolution of Lawson’s craft, beginning with notable early works. Take, for instance, Assemblage (2010–present), which was also featured in MoMA PS1’s “Greater New York” quinquennial exhibition in 2010. Assemblage features a collage of several hundred “personal” images—images that both belong to the artist and that were fabricated to look personal. The work is made up of four-by-six-inch glossy photographs of celebrities, historical images, new portraits, and personal photos of Lawson and her family, recalling the aesthetics of a teen pinning photos to her bedroom wall. The photo installation is modified whenever it is exhibited, including new memories and life changes each time. It startles audiences, presenting the type of intimacy one might experience while peering through someone else’s personal photo album, cell phone, or keepsake box.
The intimacy that Lawson creates draws out the uncanny in both her subjects and the scenes they inhabit. A seminal example is Binky & Tony Forever (2009), which was used as the cover for musician Dev Hynes (known as Blood Orange)’s 2016 album Freetown Sound. The image features a couple embracing with “Tony” seated on top of the gold duvet-covered bed and “Binky” standing against him as she gazes into the camera. The meticulously coordinated room—with sheer mint-colored curtains, a Michael Jackson poster, and yellow roses in a green bottle—belongs to neither Tony nor Binky, but to Lawson herself. Lawson made few changes to the room to adapt to her subjects and thus demonstrates the limits of the photograph as a marker for truth.
In Axis (2018), three Black women with varying shades of melanated skin lie against each other nude on a floral embroidered rug. The image purposefully conjures allusions to a variety of colonial imagery of Black women that use the various shades to express favor toward lighter skin Black women. By playing into that visual vernacular, Lawson seeks to strip it of its power. She does so by emphasizing the lushness of her models’ bodies and their ability to perform for the camera through their poses and in turn reclaims their agency.
The bravado of Lawson’s intimacy sparks strong reactions. In a 2021 interview with Jenna Wortham for the New York Times, Lawson remarked that some potential subjects have turned down working with her after seeing her images. “Just because I’m making work with Black folks in it does not mean all Black folk like my work,” said, adding that “People are like, ‘Ugh, why are you doing that?’” This response to Lawson’s intensely staged images contributes to the tapestry of representation of Black culture. She downplays the typical white mainstream museum audience, instead prioritizing audiences who are reflected in her work. We, as Black viewers, do not have to like this work and that is the point—that our gaze is centered in Lawson’s practice.
Installation view of “Deana Lawson,” 2022, at MoMA PS1. Photo by Steven Paneccasio. Courtesy of MoMA PS1.
Recently, Lawson has begun to use installation as a way to shape the audience’s experiences of her works. The new show features her crystal and photo installations, like Crystal Assemblage (2021). The incorporation of crystals nods to a pre-portrait spiritual and ritual practice that Lawson performs to clear negativity and set the mood for her subjects. These glittering stones, alongside the burgundy carpet in the show, operate as a sign that we are entering Lawson’s personal, sacred space, and create a necessary vibe check as we encounter the seemingly familial images on display.
Lawson’s approach recalls the aesthetics of personal imagery that we find in our homes, or those of friends, lovers, and family members. What is compelling about Lawson’s practice is the way she reveals the three-way relationship that audiences share with the photographer and the subjects. Lawson creates authenticity through fabrication. In that moment, between the shutter and the film, a reality that did not exist prior is being formed.
