Zoe Strauss

Zoe Strauss (born 1970) is an American photographer.^[1]

Biography

Zoe Strauss was born in 1970 in Philadelphia.^[2] 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.^[3] 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.^[4]

In 1995, she 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.^[5] Strauss calls the Project an “epic narrative” of her own neighborhood.^[5] “When I started shooting, it was as if somewhere hidden in my head I had been waiting for this,” she has said.^[5]

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.^[2] She displayed her photographs on concrete pillars under the highway and sold them for $5 each.^[1]

Strauss received a Seedling Award from the Leeway Foundation in 2002, a Pew Fellowship in 2005, and in 2006 her work was included in the Whitney Biennial.^[2] She also had a solo exhibition of her photographs, entitled Ramp Project: Zoe Strauss, at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia.^[6] In 2007 Strauss was named a 2007 USA Gund Fellow and granted $50,000 by United States Artists.

Strauss frequently photographs near her grandparents' former home at 16th and Susquehanna.^[7] 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."^[8]

Her book America was published in 2008 by AMMO Books.^[9]

In July 2012 Strauss was elected into the Magnum Photos agency.^[10]

Solo exhibitions

• 2002-2009 Works-in-Progress exhibit, Southwark Community Center, last week of October annually, Philadelphia
• 2001-2010 Under 95 exhibit, Front St. and Mifflin St., the 1st weekend of May annually, Philadelphia
• 2006 Projected and Selected Images, Acuna-Hansen Gallery, Los Angeles
• 2006 Ramp Project, Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia ^[6]
• 2007 I-95 Works in Progress, Etc. Galerie, Prague
• 2007 If You Reading This, Silverstein Photography, New York City^[11]
• 2008 Zoe Strauss: Works in Progress, Peeler Art Center, DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana ^[12]
• 2009 America: We Love Having You Here, Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York City ^[13]
• 2010 Photographs by Zoe Strauss, Under I-95, Philadelphia
• 2010 Zoe Strauss: Works for Columbus, OH, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio ^[14]
• 2012 Zoe Strauss: 10 Years, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia ^[15]
• 2012 Zoe Strauss: 10 Years: A Slideshow, Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York Ciy^[16]

Group exhibitions

• 1997 Indianapolis Installation Festival, Whirlforce Medical Research Laboratories, Indianapolis Juried Exhibition, 3rd in show.
• 2002 Leeway Award winners group show, Philadelphia Art Alliance, Philadelphia
• 2004 Big Nothing Cabaret, Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia
• 2004 Works on Paper, Arcadia University, Glenside, Pennsylvania ^[17]
• 2006 Whitney Biennial: Day for Night, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City ^[18]
• 2006 Summer Vacation: Photographs from the Collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia ^[19]
• 2006 This Is America, Centraal Museum, Utrecht, Netherlands
• 2008 History Keeps Me Awake at Night: A Genealogy of Wojnarowicz, PPOW Gallery, New York City
• 2008 L’Été photographique de Lectoure, Lectoure, France.
• 2008 Who's Afraid of America?, Wonderland Art Space, Copenhagen ^[20]
• 2009 On the Scene: Jason Lazarus, Wolfgang Plöger, Zoe Strauss, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago ^[21]
• 2010 Queer Brighton: Molly Landreth & Zoe Strauss, Lighthouse, Brighton Part of Brighton Photo Biennial.^[22]
• 2013 Carnegie International, Pittsburgh ^[23]

Commissions

• 2004-2005 St. James collection, 200 photos
• 2007 Philadelphia Eagles/Lincoln Financial Field, vinyl print of Mattress Flip
• 2008 World Class Boxing, Art Miami

Public collections

• The Philadelphia Museum of Art.^[24]

Grants and awards

• 2002 Leeway Emerging Artist grant.^[25]
• 2004 Arcadia University Works on Paper “Friends of Arcadia Award”, Arcadia University.
• 2005 Pew Fellowship in the Arts.^[2]
• 2007 USA Gund Fellow, Visual Arts.^[2]
• 2007 $50,000 grant from United States Artists^[26]

References

External links

• Official website
• Philadelphia Museum of Art Zoe Strauss: 10 Years
• NY Times Review of 10 Years A Slideshow
• New York Times Review of PMA Show
• Whitney Museum of American Art
• Philadelphia City Paper
• Flickr set of Strauss' 2006 I-95 Show
• Zoe Strauss at Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York City