Moyra Davey Explained

Moyra Davey
Birth Place:	Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Field:	Photographer, video artist, writer

Moyra Davey (born in Toronto in 1958) is an artist living and working in New York since 1988. Davey works across photography, video, and writing. She is well known for her experimental films that take root in written monologues, her human and animal portraits, and her essays that pair photography and language. She is a graduate of University of California, San Diego, and the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program.

Early life and education

Moyra Davey was born in 1958 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.^[1] She grew up in Montreal, where she studied photography and received a BFA from Concordia University in 1982. She then achieved an MFA from the University of California, San Diego in 1988. In 1989, she attended The Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program.^[2]

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 International Center of Photography Program.^[3]

Davey is represented by greengrassi, London^[4] and Galerie Buchholz, Cologne/Berlin/New York.

Publications

• . Edited by Davey (New York: Seven Stories, 2001).
• The Problem of Reading (Los Angeles: Documents Books, 2003). ^[5]
• 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.

Solo exhibitions

• 1985 – Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston, Ontario
• 1994 – Moyra Davey, Peter Doig, Gavin Brown's Enterprise, New York; American Fine Arts, Co., New York
• 2006 – Monologues (with Julia Scher), Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio^[6]
• 2008 – Long Life Cool White, The Fogg Art Museum, Harvard Art Museums, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts^[7]
• 2009 – My Necropolis, Arch II Gallery, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg
• 2010 – Speaker Receiver, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, Switzerland^[8]
• 2013 – Ornament and Reproach, Presentation House Gallery, Vancouver
• 2013 – Hangmen of England, Tate Liverpool, Liverpool, UK
• 2014 – Burn the Diaries, Mumok, Vienna; Camden Arts Centre, London
• 2017 – Empties, Galerie Buchholz, Cologne
• 2017 – Portrait / Landscape, Galerie Buchholz, Berlin
• 2017 – Hell Notes, Portikus, 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, Toronto
• 2019 – Les Goddesses, Art Institute of Chicago
• 2019 – i confess, greengrassi, London
• 2020 – Moyra Davey Peter Hujar, Galerie Buchholz, Berlin (with Peter Hujar)
• 2020 – The Faithful, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
• 2020 – Lanak/Obras/Works, Artium Museum, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain
• 2022 – Film series, Museum of Modern Art, New York^[9]

Awards

• 2004 – Anonymous Was A Woman Award^[10]
• 2010 – The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award^[11]
• 2018 – Scotiabank Photography Award^{[12] [13]}
• 2020 – John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship^[14]
• 2022 – Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts^[15]

Collections

Davey's work is held in the following permanent collections:

• Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri;^[16]
• Museum of Modern Art,^[17] New York
• Tate,^{[18] [19]} London
• Metropolitan Museum of Art,^[20] New York
• Art Institute of Chicago,^[21] the Whitney Museum of American Art,^[22] New York
• Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York^[23]
• San Francisco Museum of Modern Art,^[24]
• Museum of Contemporary Art,^[25] Los Angeles
• National Gallery of Art,^[26] Washington, DC
• National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
• Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto^[27]

Notes and References

1. http://whitney.org/Exhibitions/2012Biennial/MoyraDavey "Moyra Davey"
2. News: Vigier . Janique . 2020-05-29 . An Artist Who Delights in the Minor Key . en-US . The New York Times . 2023-02-05 . 0362-4331.
3. Web site: 2016-05-16. ICP-Bard MFA. 2021-08-30. International Center of Photography. en.
4. Web site: Moyra Davey – greengrassi.
5. Web site: The Problem of Reading available online at Murray Guy Gallery's website.
6. Web site: Exhibition : Monologues (with Julia Scher), Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH, 2006.
7. Web site: Exhibition: Long Life Cool White, The Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 2008. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20140317043251/http://www.harvardartmuseums.org/exhibitions/past/long-life-cool-white-photographs-moyra-davey. March 17, 2014.
8. Exhibition : Speaker Receiver, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, Switzerland, 2010 Web site: Kunsthalle Basel · Exhibitions · Preview. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20140317034357/http://www.kunsthallebasel.ch/exhibitions/preview/93?lang=en. March 17, 2014. 2014-03-17. mdy-all.
9. Web site: 2022-11-14. Moyra Davey – MoMA. The Museum of Modern Art.
10. Web site: Recipients to Date. Anonymous Was A Woman. en-US. 2020-02-18.
11. Web site: Tiffany Foundation Names 30 Artist Grant Winners. 2012-02-23. Observer. en-US. 2020-02-18.
12. Web site: 2019-02-10. Moyra Davey wins $50,000 Scotiabank Photography Award. thestar.com. May 8, 2018 .
13. Web site: Leah. S. als. 2019-02-10. Moyra Davey Wins $50K Scotiabank Photography Award. Canadian Art.
14. Web site: John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Moyra 2022 – Davey. 2020-10-30. en-US.
15. Web site: Moyra Frances Davey . en.ggarts.ca . Governor General of Canada . 20 August 2022.
16. Web site: Moyra Davey Kemper Art Museum. 2021-02-15. www.kemperartmuseum.wustl.edu.
17. Web site: Moyra Davey. The Coffee Shop, The Library. 2011 MoMA. The Museum of Modern Art. en. 2020-02-18.
18. Web site: 'Copperheads', Moyra Davey, 1990. Tate. en-GB. 2020-02-18.
19. Web site: '16 Photographs from Paris II', Moyra Davey, 2009. Tate. en-GB. 2020-02-18.
20. Web site: Search the Collection The Metropolitan Museum of Art. www.metmuseum.org. 2020-02-18.
21. Web site: Moyra Davey. The Art Institute of Chicago. en. 2020-02-18.
22. Web site: Moyra Davey. whitney.org. en. 2020-02-18.
23. Web site: 2022-11-14. The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation. The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation.
24. Web site: Moyra Davey · SFMOMA. www.sfmoma.org. en-US. 2020-02-18.
25. Web site: Moyra Davey. www.moca.org. 2020-02-18.
26. Web site: Artist Info. www.nga.gov. 2020-02-18.
27. Web site: Moyra Davey Biography . Murray Guy . 24 March 2019.