Born 1961 in Liberty, New York
Lives and works in New York City and Marfa, Texas
Across sculpture, photography and installation, Zoe Leonard examines the conditions of image making while exploring themes such as gender and sexuality, migration, displacement, and the urban landscape. Leonard self-reflexively considers the role which the medium plays in the construction of society and history, encouraging the viewer to re-consider the act of looking and observation.
Leonard has exhibited widely in the U.S. and internationally since the early 1990s. Her participation in Documenta IX (1992) brought her work to international attention. She has been the subject of solo shows at Chinati Foundation, Marfa (2024); Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney (2023); MAM – Musée d‘Art Moderne de Paris (2022); Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d‘Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg (2022); MOCA – Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2018), Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2018), MoMA, New York (2015), and Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland (2007–08), among other institutions. Leonard was a finalist for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2010 and was awarded The Whitney Museum Bucksbaum Prize in 2014. In 2020 she was named a Guggenheim Fellow. The artist taught in the MFA program at Bard College where she served as Co-Chair of Photography from 2011-2015.
Zoe Leonard’s works are held in many public institutions, including the Centre Pompidou, Paris; Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich; Pinault Collection, Venice; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Staatsgalerie Stuttgart; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Tate Modern, London, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.