Zoe Leonard Photographs

Photographer Zoe Leonard practices a type of cerebral roaming combined with carefully considered observation. For more than 20 years she has crisscrossed nature and culture, cityscapes and museums, always searching for signs that say something about structures, about natural and cultural conditions and the contradictions, parallels and connections between them. Leonard’s photographs of anatomical wax figures, fashion shows, trees and fences present figures in sparse black-and white images that open up visual fields of thought and reveal within them our visible world—the concrete and established structures that make up our reality. Leonard first created an international stir at the Documenta 9 exhibition in Kassel, Germany, in 1992, when she placed black-and-white photographs of female genitalia in the context of a male-dominated museum. Since then, the political aspects of her work have formed a backdrop for her constant struggle with shape, imagery and the union of symbols and content. This is the first book to showcase Leonard’s complete oeuvre.