Jayson Keeling (1966-2022) was an artist who worked in photography, video, sculpture, and installation.
Keeling's work challenges conventional norms surrounding sex, gender, race, and religion.
Keeling often reconfigured popular iconography, to explore notions of
masculinity
Masculinity (also called manhood or manliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles generally associated with men and boys. Masculinity can be theoretically understood as Social construction of gender, socially constructed, and there i ...
, and cultural ritual.
Early life and education
Jayson Keeling was born in 1966 in Brooklyn, NY to Jamaican parents.
Keeling's grew up between Jamaica and the Bronx, New York.
His bi-cultural upbringing would later influence his work.
Keeling graduated from the
Fashion Institute of Technology
The Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) is a public college under the State University of New York, in New York City. It focuses on art, business, design, mass communication, and technology connected to the fashion industry. It was founded in ...
in 1986 with an AA in Fashion Illustration and Art History.
Keeling started off by working as a photographer and film director in fashion, music, film, and the pornography industry.
Art
Jayson Keeling mines popular culture, and mythology to create artworks that question and deconstruct accepted politics of sex, gender, race, and religion.
Keeling works in photography, video, sculpture, and installation.
His work often pulls from different visual cultures and then "jams them all into the same frame."
Keeling often works in the realms in-between cultures, creating work that is "neither here nor there."
He often uses performative gestures to explore ritual and masculinity.
Jayson Keeling's photographs have been described as violent, sexy, glam and grotesque.
A work by Keeling, a diptych of photographs of legendary dancer and choreographer,
Willi Ninja
William Roscoe Leake (April 12, 1961 – September 2, 2006), better known as Willi Ninja, was an American dancer and choreographer known for his appearance in the documentary film '' Paris Is Burning''.
Ninja specialized in voguing and was a ...
, exhibited at the 2008 "The B Sides" show at
Aljira, a Center for Contemporary Art
Aljira, a Center for Contemporary Art was an artist-centered space in Newark, New Jersey, United States founded in 1983, designated a Major Arts Organization by New Jersey's State Council on the Arts.
Aljira displayed the work of both established ...
was described by art critic
Benjamin Genocchio
Benjamin Genocchio (born 1969) is an List of Australian art critics (news periodicals), Australian art critic, editor, and non-fiction writer based in New York (state), New York. He is editor-in-chief of ''Incollect Magazine''.
He worked as an ...
as "one of the show's most arresting exhibits" in ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
''.
Selected exhibitions
2014
* Aljira at 30: Dream and Reality,
New Jersey State Museum
The New Jersey State Museum is located at 195-205 West State Street in Trenton, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The museum's collections include natural history specimens, archaeological and ethnographic artifacts, and cultural history and fin ...
* The First Sweet Music at John and June Allcott Gallery
* TEN at Cindy Rucker Gallery
2013
* Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand Curated by Jayson Keeling at the
Lower East Side Printshop.
* Another New York at Barclays Center
* Psychosexual at Andrew Rafacz Gallery
2012
* Bigger Than Shadows at DODGE Gallery
* tête-à-tête at
Yancey Richardson Gallery
* tête-à-tête at Rhona Hoffman Gallery
2011
* Nov 2011 - Four Minutes, Thirty-Three Seconds at LegalArt
* See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang, Yeah. City All Over! Go Ape Crazy. at Third Streaming
* Seoul Food: apexart Outbound Residents Talk Shop at Apexart
2010
* Automatic For The People: John Ahearn and Rigoberto Torres at Aljira, a Center for Contemporary Art
* Bite:Street-inspired Art & Fashion at 3rd Streaming Gallery - 10 Green Street, 2nd FL
* Chapter Four: Let It Die at Lehmann Maupin - Chrystie Street
* Lush Life, Chapter Eight: 17 Plus 25 Is 32 at Scaramouche
* Lush Life at Collette Blanchard Gallery
* LUSH LIFE: WHISTLE at Sue Scott Gallery
* Jamaica Flux: Workspaces & Windows 2010 Art as Action at Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning
* CONVERSIONs , one-night stands at BronxArtSpace
2009
* Rockstone & Bootheel: Contemporary West Indian Art at Real Art Ways
* 99 44/100% Pure at Real Art Ways
* Everyman's an Angel at NY Studio Gallery
* PULSE at Taller Boricua Galleries at the Julia de Burgos Cultural Center
* resident/alien at
Apexart
Apexart (stylized as apexart) is a non-profit art space located in Lower Manhattan, New York. The organization, founded by Steven Rand in 1994, combines spaces for creative endeavor and curation to encourage experimentation and innovation. apexa ...
* Queens International 4 at
Queens Museum of Art
The Queens Museum (formerly the Queens Museum of Art) is an art museum and educational center at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens, New York City, United States. Established in 1972, the museum includes the '' Panorama of the City of Ne ...
* Perception As Object at Monya Rowe Gallery
2008
* VIDEOSTUDIO at
Studio Museum in Harlem
The Studio Museum in Harlem is an African-American art museum at 144 West 125th Street in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, United States. Founded in 1968, the museum collects, preserves and interprets art created by African A ...
* "Red badge of courage revisited" at Newark Arts Council,
* Strangers at Privateer
* “Homecoming” at ABC NO RIO
* Summer Mixed Tape Volume 1: the Get Smart Edition at Exit Art
* Intransit at Moti Hasson
* DEADLIEST CATCH: Hamptons at CORE : Hamptons
2007
* Sex in the City at The DUMBO Arts Center (DAC)
* The Wu-Tang / googolplex Show (Congress) at GBE@passerby
* Six Degrees of Separation at Paul Sharpe Contemporary Art
* AIM27 “Here and Elsewhere” at Bronx Museum of the Arts
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Keeling, Jayson
1966 births
Living people
American photographers