“Intimate Strangers”
A Group Exhibition Presented by Yancey Richardson
EXHIBITION ON VIEW
July 12 – August 18, 2023
YANCEY RICHARDSON
525 W 22nd St, New York, NY 10011
“Intimate Strangers”, a group exhibition focusing on parents as a central subject featuring personal photographs and videos by different artists, is on view through August 18, 2023 at Yancey Richardson. The exhibition features work from 16 artists, including Deanna Dikeman, Jess T. Dugan, Mitch Epstein, LaToya Ruby Frazier, David Hilliard, Lisa Kereszi, Tommy Kha, Justine Kurland, Jarod Lew, Marilyn Minter, Zora J Murff, Sage Sohier, Leonard Suryajaya, Mickalene Thomas, D’Angelo Lovell Williams, and Larry Sultan.
The images in Intimate Strangers reflect on relevant social issues, ranging from the pursuit of the American Dream and stigmas around aging to LGBTQ+ concerns, as well as topics related to immigration, Black masculinity, and substance addiction.
Featured Artists
David Hilliard, Mickalene Thomas, D’Angelo Lovell Williams, and Leonard Suryajaya use photography as a means of bridging the relationship between a heterosexual, estranged parent and their queer adult child.
Tommy Kha and Jarod Lew create images to assist in discovering their immigrant parents’ hidden past. In Lew’s case, he discovered that his mother had been engaged to Vincent Chin when he was murdered in a historic anti-Asian hate crime.
Mitch Epstein, Larry Sultan, and Marilyn Minter’s photography grapples with the vulnerability of an aging or ill parent. Sultan spent a decade photographing his parents, exploring the nuances of their daily dynamics. Epstein’s picture of his 82-year-old father, photographed from above, exposes the vulnerable side of aging.
D’Angelo Lovell Williams and Zora J Murff both examine black masculinity and the father-son power dynamic. In Daddy Issues, Williams photographs himself in an arm-wrestling contest with his father, on a rare visit together.
Marilyn Minter’s black and white photographs of her mother while she was a student in art school depict a life before addiction, as her mother, crippled with anxiety, lived in a nightgown and rarely left the house.
David Hilliard created a series of quizzical, narrative tableaux featuring his heterosexual, blue-collar parent from 1998 until his father’s death from Covid in 2020. As a queer artist son acknowledging his lineage, he replicated his father’s chest tattoo on his own body.
Mickalene Thomas pairs a photograph of her mother as a sensuous odalisque, bare-breasted and eyes closed, with a sexually charged self-portrait staring directly at the camera.
Sage Sohier recreates memories from childhood of her mother’s beauty routines, planned and performed in collaboration with an affectionate wry humor.
Leonard Suryajaya, a queer Chinese Indonesian artist, combines performance, installation, and photography in an absurd but affectionate montage, which both questions familial authority and asserts his identity.
Jess T. Dugan, a queer nonbinary artist, uses video to speak directly to their estranged father about the pain of non-acceptance.
