Moyra Davey (born 1958) is an

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, t ...

based in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

. Davey works across photography, video, and writing.

Early life

Moyra Davey was born in 1958 in

Toronto, Ontario Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

, Canada. She grew up in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple- ...

, where she studied photography and received a BFA from

Concordia University Concordia University (French: ''Université Concordia'') is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1974 following the merger of Loyola College and Sir George Williams University, Concordia is one of the th ...

in 1982. She then achieved an MFA from the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...

in 1988. In 1989, she attended The Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program.

Career

Since the late 1970s, Davey has built a body of work composed of photographs, writings, and video. She was previously a faculty member at the

Bard College Bard College is a private liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The campus overlooks the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains, and is within the Hudson River Historic District—a National Historic Landmark. Founded in 18 ...

International Center of Photography Program. Davey is represented by greengrassi, London and Galerie Buchholz, Cologne/Berlin/New York.

Solo exhibitions

*1985 – Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston, Ontario *1994 – Moyra Davey, Peter Doig,

Gavin Brown's Enterprise Gavin Brown's enterprise was an art gallery with venues in New York City and Rome owned by Gavin Brown between 1994 and 2020. In 2020, it merged with Gladstone Gallery. History Broome Street The gallery was established by Gavin Brown in 1994 on ...

, New York; American Fine Arts, Co., New York *2006 – Monologues (with Julia Scher), Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio *2008 – Long Life Cool White, The Fogg Art Museum,

Harvard Art Museums The Harvard Art Museums are part of Harvard University and comprise three museums: the Fogg Museum (established in 1895), the Busch-Reisinger Museum (established in 1903), and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (established in 1985), and four research ...

, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts *2009 – My Necropolis, Arch II Gallery, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg *2010 – Speaker Receiver,

Kunsthalle Basel Kunsthalle Basel is a contemporary art gallery in Basel, Switzerland. As Switzerland's oldest and still most active institution for contemporary art, Kunsthalle Basel forms a vital part of Basel's cultural centre and is located next to the city's ...

, Basel, Switzerland *2013 – Ornament and Reproach, Presentation House Gallery, Vancouver *2013 – Hangmen of England,

Tate Liverpool Tate Liverpool is an art gallery and museum in Liverpool, Merseyside, England, and part of Tate, along with Tate St Ives, Cornwall, Tate Britain, London, and Tate Modern, London. The museum was an initiative of the Merseyside Development Corpo ...

, Liverpool, UK *2014 – Burn the Diaries, Mumok, Vienna; Camden Arts Centre, London *2017 – Empties,

Galerie Buchholz Galerie Buchholz is an art gallery specializing in international contemporary art with exhibition spaces in Cologne, Berlin and New York City. The gallery was founded in Cologne in 1986 by Daniel Buchholz, and today is run jointly with Christop ...

, Cologne *2017 – Portrait / Landscape, Galerie Buchholz, Berlin *2017 – Hell Notes,

Portikus Portikus is an exhibition hall for contemporary art in Frankfurt am Main, that was founded in 1987 by Kasper König. The museum is part of the Museumsufer. Portikus presents the work of internationally renowned artists, and exhibits younger, eme ...

, Frankfurt *2018 – Hell Notes, , Bielefeld *2018 – "1943", Galerie Buchholz, New York *2018 – Bring My Garters/Do Nothing, experimenter, Kolkata *2019 – Scotiabank Photography Award: Moyra Davey,

Ryerson Image Centre The Image Centre (formerly known as the Ryerson Image Centre and the Ryerson Gallery and Research Centre) is an photography and art museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The centre is a university museum operated by Toronto Metropolitan Universi ...

, Toronto *2019 – Les Goddesses,

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mil ...

*2019 – i confess, greengrassi, London *2020 – Moyra Davey Peter Hujar, Galerie Buchholz, Berlin (with Peter Hujar) *2020 – The Faithful,

National Gallery of Canada The National Gallery of Canada (french: Musée des beaux-arts du Canada), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's national art museum. The museum's building takes up , with of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the ...

, Ottawa *2020 – Lanak/Obras/Works, Artium Museum, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain *2022 – Film series,

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, ...

, New York

Awards

*2004 –

Anonymous Was A Woman Award The Anonymous Was A Woman Award is a grant program for women artists who are over 40 years of age, in part to counter sexism in the art world. It began in 1996 in direct response to the National Endowment for the Arts' decision to stop funding in ...

*2010 – The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award *2018 – Scotiabank Photography Award *2020 –

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was founded in 1925 by Olga and Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died on April 26, 1922. The organization awards Guggenheim Fellowships to professionals who have demonstrated exceptional ...

Fellowship *2022 – Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts

Collections

Davey's work is held in the following permanent collections: * Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri; *Museum of Modern Art, New York *

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

, London *Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York *Art Institute of Chicago, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York *

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...

, New York *

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was ...

, *

Museum of Contemporary Art Museum of Contemporary Art (often abbreviated to MCA, MoCA or MOCA) may refer to: Africa * Museum of Contemporary Art (Tangier), Morocco, officially le Galerie d'Art Contemporain Mohamed Drissi Asia East Asia * Museum of Contemporary Art Shangha ...

, Los Angeles *

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of ch ...

, Washington, DC *

, Ottawa *

Art Gallery of Ontario The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO; french: Musée des beaux-arts de l'Ontario) is an art museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The museum is located in the Grange Park neighbourhood of downtown Toronto, on Dundas Street West between McCaul and Be ...

, Toronto

Publications

*'' Mother Reader: Essential Writings on Motherhood''. Edited by Moyra Davey (New York: Seven Stories, 2001). *''The Problem of Reading'' (Los Angeles: Documents Books, 2003). *''Long Life Cool White: Photographs and Essays by Moyra Davey'' (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Art Museums; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008). Introduction by Helen Molesworth. *''Copperheads'' (Toronto: Byewater Bros. Editions, 2010). *''Speaker Receiver'' (Berlin: Sternberg, 2010). Essays by George Baker, Bill Horrigan, Chris Kraus, and Eric Rosenberg, and an interview by Adam Szymczyk. . *''The Wet and the Dry'' (Paris: Paraguayress, 2011). Edited by castillo/corrales and Will Holder. *''Empties'' (Vancouver: Presentation House, 2013). *''Burn the Diaries'' (Brooklyn: Dancing Foxes, 2014). *''I'm Your Fan'' (London: Camden Arts Centre, 2014). * ''Les Goddesses / Hemlock Forest'' (Brooklyn: Dancing Foxes, 2017). Introduction by Aveek Sen. *''Gold Dumps and Ant Hills'' (Berlin: Toupée, 2017). * ''Index Cards: Selected Essays'' (New Directions, 2020). Edited by Nicolas Linnert. *''I Confess'' (Ottawa/Brooklyn: National Gallery of Canada and Dancing Foxes, 2020). Essays by Dalie Giroux and Andrea Kunard.

References

External Links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Davey, Moyra 1958 births Living people 20th-century Canadian women artists 21st-century Canadian women artists Artists from Toronto Bard College faculty Concordia University alumni University of California, San Diego alumni Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts winners