Love and Lust #9

About the Photographer

Nicosia, Nic

American, b.1951

Nic Nicosia examines the underbelly of modern American life – the lust, violence, and humor that pervade many aspects of our society. Nicosia belongs to the generation of photographers that emerged in the 1970s questioning the authority of film and exposing the artificiality inherent in photography. In this way, Nicosia toys with our perceptions and shows us the disparities lying just below the surface of modern-day life. Disrupting the viewer's expectations, Nicosia's technically precise photographs explore the myth of perfection still alive in America's suburbs. With startling humor, he takes the intimate, mundane backgrounds of the universally familiar: the bedroom, the kitchen, and the backyard, altering them with a layer of artifice that seems, sometimes, all too real.

Born in Dallas, Texas, Nicosia attended the University of North Texas, Denton (BA, 1974). His works have been shown at the Centro de Arte de Salamanca, Spain; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and SITE Santa Fe, New Mexico, among others. His photographs are held in many collections, such institutions as the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Guggenheim Museum, New York; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Nicosia currently lives and works in Dallas, Texas.