Moyra Davey

Moyra Davey (born 1958) is a Canadian artist based in New York City. Davey works across photography, video, and writing.

Early life

Moyra Davey was born in 1958 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Davey received a BFA from Concordia University in 1982 and a MFA from the University of California, San Diego in 1988. In 1989, she attended The Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program.

Career

Since the late 1970s, Davey has built an increasingly influential body of work composed of photographs, writings, and video. She was previously a faculty member at the Bard College International Center of Photography Program.

Select Solo exhibitions

• 1984 The Photography Gallery, Toronto // Saw Gallery, Ottawa, Ontario
• 1985 Agnes Etherington Arts Center, Kingston, Ontario
• 1989 Optica, Montreal
• 1994 Moyra Davey, Peter Doig, Gavin Brown's Enterprise, New York // American Fine Arts, Co., New York
• 1996 American Fine Arts, Co., New York
• 1998 Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco, CA
• 1999 American Fine Arts, Co., New York
• 2002 Goodwater, Toronto
• 2003 American Fine Arts, Co., New York
• 2006 Monologues (with Julia Scher), Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH
• 2007 Fifty Minutes, Goodwater, Toronto// My Place, TART, San Francisco, CA
• 2008 Long Life Cool White, The Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
• 2009 My Necropolis, Murray Guy, New York // My Necropolis, Arch II Gallery, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg
• 2010 Speaker Receiver, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, Switzerland// My Necropolis, Goodwater, Toronto // My Necropolis, lllingworth Kerr Gallery, Alberta College of Art + Design, Canada
• 2011 Les Goddesses, Greengrassi, London
• 2012 Spleen. Indolence. Torpor. Ill-humour, Murray Guy, New York
• 2013 Ornament and Reproach, Presentation House Gallery, Vancouver // Hangmen of England, Tate Liverpool, Liverpool, UK
• 2014 Ornament and Reproach, Murray Guy, New York // Burn the Diaries, MUMOK — Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna; // Camden Arts Centre, London
• 2015 You're a nice guy to let me hold you like this. greengrassi, London // The Revenants, Wilfried Lentz, Rotterdam
• 2016 Hemlock Forest, Bergen Kunsthall, Norway // 7 Albums, Murray Guy, New York
• 2017 Empties, Galerie Buchholz, Cologne // Portrait / Landscape, Galerie Buchholz, Berlin // Hell Notes, Portikus, Frankfurt
• 2018 Hell Notes, Bielefelder Kunstverein, Bielefeld // "1943", Galerie Buchholz, New York
• 2019 Scotiabank Photography Award: Moyra Davey, Ryerson Image Centre, Toronto

Prizes and awards

• 2004 Anonymous Was a Woman
• 2010 The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award
• 2018 Scotiabank Photography Award

Public collections

Davey's works are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Tate Modern, London; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; and the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.

Publications

• Mother Reader: Essential Writings on Motherhood. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2001. ISBN 1583220720
• The Problem of Reading. Los Angeles: Documents Books, 2003. ISBN 0974260509
• 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. ISBN 9780300136463
• Copperheads. Toronto: Byewater Bros. Editions, 2010. ISBN 9780978078935
• Speaker Receiver, Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2010. Essays by George Baker, Bill Horrigan, Chris Kraus, and Eric Rosenberg, and an interview by Adam Szymczyk; ISBN 9781934105207.
• Galerie J Chronology, Boabooks, 2011. ISBN 9782940409280
• The Wet and the Dry, Paris: Paraguay Press, 2011. Edited by castillo/corrales and Will Holder; ISBN 9782918252115
• Empties. Vancouver: Presentation House, 2013.
• Burn the Diaries. Brooklyn: Dancing Foxes, 2014 ISBN 9780985337728
• I'm Your Fan. London: Camden Arts Centre, 2014
• The Memory of Time: Contemporary Photographs at the National Gallery of Art
• Les Goddesses / Hemlock Forest. Brooklyn: Dancing Foxes Press, 2017. ISBN 9780998632605