Jimmy De Sana

Jimmy DeSana (November 12, 1949 – July 27, 1990) was an American artist, and a key figure in the East Village punk art scene of the 1970s and 1980s.[1] DeSana's photography has been described as "anti-art" in its approach to capturing images of the human body, in a manner ranging from "savagely explicit to purely symbolic".,[2] William S. Burroughs wrote the introduction to his collection of photographs Submission which was self-published in 1980.[3] His work includes the album cover for the Talking Heads album More Songs about Buildings and Food.

Biography

DeSana was born in Detroit in 1950, but grew up in Atlanta. He began to take photographs being a teen, mostly photographing his friends and acquaintances naked. His early photographs were of his friends striking silly and sexy poses in houses and gardens. He moved to New York in 1973. DeSana continued to picture the human body as the primary subject. He worked in black and white till 1980, when he began to experiment with color photography. DeSana died in 1990 from AIDS related illness.[4]

He had numerous solo exhibitions, including those in Wilkinson Gallery, London; Pat Hearn Gallery, New York; Galerie Jacques de Windt, Brussels and Museum of the Twentieth Century, Vienna, Austria[5]

References
  1. De Sana, Jimmy. Submission: Selected Photographs, 1977–1978. New York: Scat Publications, 1979.
  2. Grundberg, Andy. "Critic's Choice", New York Times January 4, 1991.
  3. "Guide to the Jimmy De Sana Papers, 1954–1997 (bulk 1977–1990) MSS 202" Archived September 10, 2009, at the Wayback Machine, August 5, 2009. Finding aid at Fales Library and Special Collections, Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, New York: New York University.
  4. http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/reviews/jimmy-desana/
  5. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on March 30, 2016. Retrieved November 8, 2015.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)

Further reading
  • DeSana, Jimmy, Laurie Simmons, Roberta Smith, and William S. Bartman. Jimmy DeSana Los Angeles: A.R.T. Press, 1990. ISBN 0-923183-03-5
  • Grundberg, Andy, Jerry Saltz, and Jimmy De Sana. Abstraction in Contemporary Photography. Richmond: Anderson Gallery, 1989.
  • Hainley, Bruce. "Jimmy DeSana." Artforum International. 34(1995): 90–1.
  • Punk Art online version of catalogue for a 1978 exhibition at the Washington Project for the Arts, Washington DC.
  • Watson, Liz. "Paying Homage to Jimmy DeSana." Lenny Letter. Hearst Digital Media, February 15, 2017. Web. February 28, 2017. – Includes link to video produced for amFAR made by artist and filmmaker Laurie Simmons with interview with her daughter, writer Lena Dunham.
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