Susan Bee

SOUTHFIRST is proud to present "Photograms and Altered Photos from the 1970s," the first exhibition presenting the full scope of the experimental photographic work of SUSAN BEE. Bee’s painterly, often-colorful takes on the medium, executed between 1976-1981, anticipate her later painting practice, but they also deeply explore the possibilities of experimental photography.

Bee, known primarily for her paintings, was a prolific darkroom photographer during the late 1970s. During this period she was writing her master’s thesis on Moholy-Nagy and Man Ray’s photograms while studying with Rosalind Krauss at Hunter College. Bee also, from the same small apartment housing the darkroom, collaborated on the production of the influential poetry magazine L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E with Charles Bernstein; a portion of Bee’s thesis on photograms appears in the second issue of the magazine. Black-and-white or individually hand-colored, demonstrating experimental techniques like hand-painted developer, the dozens of original small (5x7”, 8x10”, and 11x14”) photograms trace of the legacy of European modernism and its afterlife in an American literary and artistic avant-garde.

Susan Bee (b. 1952) has a BA from Barnard College and a MA in Art from Hunter College. She was the coeditor of M/E/A/N/I/N/G: A Journal of Contemporary Art Issues from 1986-96 and is currently the coeditor of M/E/A/N/I/N/G Online. Bee won a Guggenheim Fellowship in Fine Arts in 2014. Her paintings and artist’s books are included in many public and private collections including the Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery at Reed College, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Princeton University Library, Getty Museum, Victoria & Albert Museum, Yale University, Clark Art Institute, New York Public Library, and Harvard University Library. She has published collaborations with numerous poets including Susan Howe and Johanna Drucker. She lives and works in Brooklyn.