This first scholarly publication on the artist Deana Lawson, surveying fifteen years of her photography, will be published to accompany the first comprehensive museum survey exhibition featuring Lawson’s artwork. A singular voice in contemporary photography, Lawson has been investigating and challenging conventional representations of black identities in the African American and African diaspora for over fifteen years. Her work samples numerous photographic languages, including the family album, studio portraiture, staged tableaux, documentary pictures, and found images, creating narratives of family, love, and desire. This publication will include selections from Lawson’s personal family photographs and archives of vernacular images that have profoundly informed her work.

Deanna Lawson

Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MoMA PS.1 and MACK Books, 2021

29.5 X 25 cm, 144 pages