The work of
Jimmy DeSana

Transgressive photos
of Jimmy DeSana

1949 — 1990

The late artist’s work – which mixed queer aesthetics and sexual liberation – is celebrated in a retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum

The impact of DeSana’s images arises through a peculiar warmth they emanate, not only through his utilisation of gel-lighting in balmy hues of red, but also with the Atlanta-raised artist’s assumption of homey interiors as backdrops for bodily contortions and corporal postures.

32 years after his Aids-related passing, DeSana has been commemorated with the first museum exhibition – fittingly in New York, where he produced a vast body of lens-based work after moving to the city at age 23 from Georgia in 1972.

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