This focused selection of photographs by Paul Mpagi Sepuya (b. 1982, San Bernardino, CA) represents the artist's interest in how pictures are made, seen, and circulated. In these works, Sepuya documents himself and his extended queer community, creating photographs that challenge and deconstruct traditional norms of the studio portraiture genre. Sepuya subverts this genre through his embrace of his own Black, queer gaze, creating intimate images of himself with fellow artists, collaborators, and lovers that are at once extensions of relationships and projections of desire. These works also call attention to the studio as social site and a meeting place for a range of dynamic forces: cultural, historical, sensual, and political.

Paul Mpagi Sepuya is presented in conjunction with the 2022 Monsen Photography Lecture by Sepuya on June 17, 2022. This annual lecture brings key makers and thinkers in photographic practice to the Henry. Named after Drs. Elaine and Joseph Monsen, the series is designed to further knowledge about and appreciation for the art of photography.

Paul Mpagi Sepuya (b. 1982, San Bernardino, CA) is a Los Angeles-based artist working in photography and Associate Professor in Media Arts at the University of California, San Diego. He makes photographs documenting himself and his extended queer community that challenge and deconstruct traditional norms of the studio portraiture genre. Sepuya subverts this genre through his embrace of his own Black, queer gaze, creating intimate images of himself with fellow artists, collaborators, and lovers that are at once extensions of relationships and projections of desire. His work is in the collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art; the Guggenheim Museums; the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Studio Museum in Harlem; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others. Recent exhibitions include solo presentations at Vielmetter Los Angeles and the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, a survey of work at the Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis, and a project for the 2019 Whitney Biennial. Most recently, Sepuya’s solo exhibition, Stage, was on view at Document in Chicago, and a publication co-curated and produced with TBW Books is forthcoming.

MUSEUM HOURS
Monday – Wednesday: Closed
Thursday: 10 AM – 7 PM
Friday – Sunday: 10 AM – 5 PM

Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Darkroom Mirror (_2200633), 2018. Inkjet print. Courtesy of the artist and Vielmetter Los Angeles.