Nationality American Name Zoe Strauss | Role Photographer Known for Photography | |
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Zoe strauss photographs become billboards
Zoe Strauss (born 1970) is an American photographer and a nominee member of Magnum Photos. She uses Philadelphia as a primary setting and subject for her work. Curator Peter Barberie identifies her as a street photographer, like Walker Evans or Robert Frank, and has said “the woman and man on the street, yearning to be heard, are the basis of her art.”
Contents
- Zoe strauss photographs become billboards
- Atlanta celebrates photography lecture zoe strauss
- Biography
- Zoe Strauss 10 Years
- Billboard Project
- Publications
- Solo exhibitions
- Group exhibitions
- Commissions
- Collection
- Awards
- References
Her book America was published in 2008 by AMMO Books.
In 2006 her work was included in the Whitney Biennial and her solo exhibition, Ramp Project: Zoe Strauss, was shown at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia. In 2012 a mid-career retrospective, Zoe Strauss: 10 Years, was shown at Philadelphia Museum of Art and in New York, accompanied in Philadelphia by a display of 54 billboards showing her photographs.
Strauss received a Seedling Award from the Leeway Foundation in 2002 and a Pew Fellowship in 2005, was named a 2007 USA Gund Fellow with a grant of $50,000 by United States Artists, and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2017.
Atlanta celebrates photography lecture zoe strauss
Biography
Strauss was born in 1970 in Philadelphia. Her father died when she was 5. She was the first member of her immediate family to graduate from high school. For her 30th birthday she was given a camera and started photographing in the city's marginal neighborhoods. She is a photo-based installation artist who uses Philadelphia as a primary setting and subject for her work. Strauss typically photographs overlooked (or purposefully avoided) details with a humanist perspective and eye for composure.
In 1995, Strauss started the Philadelphia Public Art Project, a one-woman organization whose mission is to give the citizens of Philadelphia access to art in their everyday lives. Strauss calls the Project an "epic narrative" of her own neighborhood. "When I started shooting, it was as if somewhere hidden in my head I had been waiting for this," she has said.
Between 2000 and 2011, Strauss's photographic work culminated in a yearly "Under I-95" show which took place beneath the Interstate in South Philadelphia. She displayed her photographs on concrete pillars under the highway and sold them for $5 each.
She frequently photographs near her grandparents' former home at 16th and Susquehanna. Her photographs include shuttered buildings, empty parking lots and vacant meeting halls in South Philadelphia. Strauss says her work is “a narrative about the beauty and difficulty of everyday life."
In July 2012 Strauss was elected into the Magnum Photos agency as a nominee.
Zoe Strauss: 10 Years
The exhibit Zoe Strauss: 10 Years was organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where it appeared from January 14, 2012 to April 22, 2012. The show was a mid-career retrospective, building upon Strauss' ten years of photographic works, shown yearly from 2001 to 2010 in a public space beneath an I-95 highway overpass. During that time she mounted her color photographs on the bridge supports and offered photocopies for sale for five dollars each. The 2012 exhibition was the first critical assessment of Strauss' ten year project. It was accompanied by a 250-illustration catalogue, Zoe Strauss: 10 Years (2012). The exhibition was also shown at the International Center of Photography, New York City, from October 4, 2013 to January 19, 2014.
Billboard Project
In 2012, the Philadelphia Museum of Art exhibition Zoe Strauss: Ten Years included the installation throughout Philadelphia of 54 billboards featuring photographs by Zoe Strauss. Although they could be viewed individually, the images were loosely structured around the themes of the Odyssey, journey and homecoming. In this, the Billboard Project was similar to Strauss' annual I-95 exhibition in South Philadelphia which she describes as an “epic narrative about the beauty and struggle of everyday life”. The Billboard Project included photographs from Strauss’s travels around the country. from the Gulf of Mexico to Fairbanks, AK.
Publications
Solo exhibitions
Group exhibitions
Commissions
Collection
Strauss' work is held in the following permanent public collection: