Overview

Jimmy DeSana: Suburban collects in print for the first time DeSana's surreally lyrical, sexually charged photographs from his series of the same name, made in the late 1970s through the 1980s. DeSana staged photos of nude subjects, male and female, in various strange, evocative poses, entwined with everyday objects and luridly lit with gel-covered tungsten lights. The photographs suggest broad physical comedy as much as sadomasochism. I don't really think of that work as erotic, DeSana has said of this series. I think of the body almost as an object. I attempted to use the body but without the eroticism that some photographers use frequently. I think I de-eroticized a lot of it but that is the way the suburbs are in a sense. At a moment of growing interest in DeSana's life and work, this volume (edited by Dan Nadel and DeSana's longtime roommate and friend Laurie Simmons) offers access to a critical-and previously unpublished-early body of the photographer's work.

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9781597113410

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Reviews

delightfully lurid images--Cait Munro ArtNet News (07/23/2015)

Sprawled on couches and carpets, slathered with dish soap, or balanced precariously on dressers and tables, DeSana's figures explore sexuality and desire. – ArtNet News The photos represent an early and rarely-seen body of DeSana's work, but still feel remarkably fresh and relevant today, as suburban sprawl and gentrification creep outward, sexual mores are challenged and re-evaluated, and the complexity of the human form continues to enthrall artists. – ArtNet News Jimmy DeSana uses the body the way a dancer does to express emotion and tell a story much bigger then the pleasures of the flesh. – Advocate

Author Information

Jimmy DeSana was a groundbreaking photographer who was a key figure in New York’s downtown music and art scene in the 1970sand ’80s. DeSana was a frequent contributor to publications including the East Village Eye and SoHo Weekly News, as well as to the New York Rocker, photographing musicians such as Talking Heads, Debbie Harry, and Billy Idol. He exhibited at Pat Hearn Gallery, Galerie Jablonka, and at PS1, as part of the seminal 1981 exhibition New York/New Wave. Jimmy DeSana was a groundbreaking photographer who was a key figure in New York’s downtown music and art scene in the 1970sand ’80s. DeSana was a frequent contributor to publications including the East Village Eye and SoHo Weekly News, as well as to the New York Rocker, photographing musicians such as Talking Heads, Debbie Harry, and Billy Idol. He exhibited at Pat Hearn Gallery, Galerie Jablonka, and at PS1, as part of the seminal 1981 exhibition New York/New Wave. Laurie Simmons is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant and has exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally, including at the Baltimore Museum of Art; the Kunstrum Munchen; the Whitney Biennial; and The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Simmons lives and works in New York. Laurie Simmons is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant and has exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally, including at the Baltimore Museum of Art; the Kunstrum Munchen; the Whitney Biennial; and The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Simmons lives and works in New York. Dan Nadel is a writer and editor for art and visual culture publications, and an art curator. He is the author of Art Out of Time: Unknown Comics Visionaries, 1900-1969 and Art in Time: Unknown Comic Book Adventures, 1940-1980; the coauthor of Electrical Banana: Masters of Psychedelic Art; the editor of Gary Panter; the coeditor of the online version of The Comics Journal; and the curator of What Nerve!: Alternative Figures in American Art from 1960 to the Present at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum. He is also the founder of PictureBox, a Grammy Award-winning publishing company.

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