Jimmy DeSana: Suburban

This surreally lyrical, sexually charged book collects Jimmy DeSana’s earlier work, made from 1980 to 1983. For his series Suburban, DeSana staged photos of nude subjects in various evocative poses, entwined with everyday objects and lit with gel-covered tungsten lights. Rather than constructing a space, the “suburban” was a place of examining stereotypes and norms. Of this series, DeSana told Laurie Simmons, his contemporary and longtime roommate, “I don’t really think of that work as erotic. 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. Particularly in that period, but that is the way the suburbs are in a sense.” Interest in DeSana is at a renewed high: Salon 94 represents his estate and mounted a well-received exhibition in 2012, and art and photography from the early 1980s is enjoying a renaissance across all media. There is a special interest now in queer artists and the legacy of a generation destroyed by AIDS, with regard to contemporary photography and queer culture and Jimmy DeSana: Suburban is an essential contribution to this evolving canon.

About the Author :
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.

Review :
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