Liz Deschenes in Conversation with Laura Larson

Liz Deschenes “is a photographer who, in the best modernist tradition, pushes against the basic terms by which photography is conventionally defined,” writes curator and critic Matthew Witkovsky. Indeed, Deschenes uses extreme exposure and photogram techniques (images made without a camera) to create unique, shifting surfaces that frequently function as sculptural or architectural objects.

Deschenes has exhibited her work regularly since receiving her BFA in 1988 from the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence. She has most recently mounted solo exhibitions at Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York, and Campoli Presti, London and Paris. ICA Boston presented the first comprehensive survey of her photographs, organized by Eva Respini, in 2016. Her work is represented in the collections of such institutions as the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; The Art Institute of Chicago; and The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Laura Larson is a photographer, writer, and teacher based in Columbus, Ohio. She’s exhibited her work at venues including Art in General, Brooklyn; Centre Pompidou, Paris; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Wexner Center, and her work is held in such collections as Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, Ohio; Deutsche Bank; Margulies Collection, Miami; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and the New York Public Library. Her first book, Hidden Mother (2017), was shortlisted for the Aperture-Paris Photo First Photo Book Prize and its companion exhibition—the first in the US to be devoted to this vernacular subject of hidden mother photography— traveled 2014–16. Larson is currently at work on City of Incurable Women (forthcoming from Saint Lucy Books) and All the Women I Know, a collaborative book with writer Christine Hume. Her work is represented by Contemporary Art Matters in Columbus.