Zoe Leonard, Artist
Untitled
, 1984/1991
Medium
7 gelatin silver prints
Dimensions
10 x 7 1/2 in. (25.4 x 19.1 cm) or 7 1/2 x 10 in. (19.1 x 25.4 cm) each
Credit Line
Courtesy of the artist and Murray Guy, New York. Images courtesy of the artist and Murray Guy
Modes of looking figure centrally in the work of Zoe Leonard. The photographs from this untitled series feature young girls in dresses and winter coats viewing the skeletons and taxidermic chimpanzees in the dioramas at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, revealing the linear narratives constructed by anthropological displays ("we evolved from them"). We see how subjects and understandings are formed in relation to institutions, how specific visual and pedagogical systems are embraced by museums, and how constructed narratives are passed off as both "natural" and inevitable.