Exhibition: Al río/To the River – Zoe Leonard
‘Zoe Leonard is one of today’s most critically acclaimed artists. This presentation of Al río / To the River is the first major exhibition of the internationally renowned artist’s work in Australia.
Working with photography, sculpture and site-specific installation, Leonard balances a conceptual clarity with a distinctly personal vision. Her photographs are often grounded in observations of daily life. Migration and displacement, gender and sexuality, mourning and loss, cultural history and the tensions between the natural world and human built environments are recurring themes. Using seriality, shifting perspectives and a multitude of printing processes, Leonard probes the politics of representation and display, and invites us to contemplate the role the photographic medium plays in constructing history.
Over a period of five years, beginning in 2016, Leonard photographed along the 2,000 km stretch where the Rio Grande/ Río Bravo is used to demarcate the international boundary between Mexico and the United States, following the river from the border cities of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, and El Paso, Texas, to the Gulf of Mexico’. From MoCAA website.
Museum of Contemporary Art Australia. Sydney. Until 5 November 2023
The small number of prints of the river on the MCA website suggests that this is a fascinating, long term project that encompasses hundreds of b+w photographs. The project explores various aspect of country along the river’s course from the border cities of Ciudad Juárez and El Paso to the Gulf of Mexico. Presumably, the exhibition at the MCA shows a selection from this body of work.
From the images I’ve seen the photography looks to be very topographical in orientation and which builds on, or references, the work of Robert Adams.