Jayson Keeling
Jayson Keeling (1966-2022)[1] was an artist who worked in photography, video, sculpture, and installation.[2][3] Keeling's work challenges conventional norms surrounding sex, gender, race, and religion.[2] Keeling often reconfigured popular iconography, to explore notions of masculinity, and cultural ritual.[4]
Early life and education
Jayson Keeling was born in 1966 in Brooklyn, NY to Jamaican parents.[5][3] Keeling's grew up between Jamaica and the Bronx, New York.[6] His bi-cultural upbringing would later influence his work.[6] Keeling graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology in 1986 with an AA in Fashion Illustration and Art History.[4] Keeling started off by working as a photographer and film director in fashion, music, film, and the pornography industry.[2]
Art
Jayson Keeling mines popular culture, and mythology to create artworks that question and deconstruct accepted politics of sex, gender, race, and religion.[4][3] Keeling works in photography, video, sculpture, and installation.[2][3]
His work often pulls from different visual cultures and then "jams them all into the same frame."[5] Keeling often works in the realms in-between cultures, creating work that is "neither here nor there."[5] He often uses performative gestures to explore ritual and masculinity.[3]
Jayson Keeling's photographs have been described as violent, sexy, glam and grotesque.[5]
A work by Keeling, a diptych of photographs of legendary dancer and choreographer, Willi Ninja, exhibited at the 2008 "The B Sides" show at Aljira, a Center for Contemporary Art was described by art critic Benjamin Genocchio as "one of the show's most arresting exhibits" in The New York Times.[7]
Selected exhibitions
2014
- Aljira at 30: Dream and Reality, New Jersey State Museum[8][9]
 - The First Sweet Music at John and June Allcott Gallery
 - TEN at Cindy Rucker Gallery[10]
 
2013
- Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand Curated by Jayson Keeling at the Lower East Side Printshop.
 - Another New York at Barclays Center
 - Psychosexual at Andrew Rafacz Gallery[10]
 
2012
- Bigger Than Shadows at DODGE Gallery
 - tête-à-tête at Yancey Richardson Gallery
 - tête-à-tête at Rhona Hoffman Gallery[10]
 
2011
- Nov 2011 - Four Minutes, Thirty-Three Seconds at LegalArt
 - See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang, Yeah. City All Over! Go Ape Crazy. at Third Streaming[11][5]
 - Seoul Food: apexart Outbound Residents Talk Shop at Apexart[10]
 
2010
- Automatic For The People: John Ahearn and Rigoberto Torres at Aljira, a Center for Contemporary Art
 - Bite:Street-inspired Art & Fashion at 3rd Streaming Gallery - 10 Green Street, 2nd FL
 - Chapter Four: Let It Die at Lehmann Maupin - Chrystie Street
 - Lush Life, Chapter Eight: 17 Plus 25 Is 32 at Scaramouche
 - Lush Life at Collette Blanchard Gallery
 - LUSH LIFE: WHISTLE at Sue Scott Gallery
 - Jamaica Flux: Workspaces & Windows 2010 Art as Action at Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning
 - CONVERSIONs | one-night stands at BronxArtSpace[10]
 
2009
- Rockstone & Bootheel: Contemporary West Indian Art at Real Art Ways
 - 99 44/100% Pure at Real Art Ways
 - Everyman's an Angel at NY Studio Gallery
 - PULSE at Taller Boricua Galleries at the Julia de Burgos Cultural Center
 - resident/alien at Apexart
 - Queens International 4 at Queens Museum of Art
 - Perception As Object at Monya Rowe Gallery[10]
 
2008
- VIDEOSTUDIO at Studio Museum in Harlem[12]
 - "Red badge of courage revisited" at Newark Arts Council,
 - Strangers at Privateer
 - “Homecoming” at ABC NO RIO
 - Summer Mixed Tape Volume 1: the Get Smart Edition at Exit Art
 - Intransit at Moti Hasson
 - DEADLIEST CATCH: Hamptons at CORE : Hamptons[10]
 
2007
- Sex in the City at The DUMBO Arts Center (DAC)
 - The Wu-Tang / googolplex Show (Congress) at GBE@passerby
 - Six Degrees of Separation at Paul Sharpe Contemporary Art
 - AIM27 “Here and Elsewhere” at Bronx Museum of the Arts[10]
 
References
- ^ "Jayson Keeling". International Center of Photography. 2016-03-02. Retrieved 2018-04-09.
 - ^ a b c d "NEW YORK: Jayson Keeling in Conversation". Black Artist News. 1 December 2011. Retrieved 28 March 2018.
 - ^ a b c d e "Jayson Keeling". AFRICANAH.ORG. AFRICANAH.ORG. Retrieved 25 March 2018.
 - ^ a b c "Jayson Keeling". Artspace. Retrieved 25 March 2018.
 - ^ a b c d e "Go Wild With Jayson Keeling's Exhibition "See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang, Yeah. City All Over! Go Ape Crazy"". The Huffington Post. February 22, 2012. Retrieved 28 March 2018.
 - ^ a b ARC. "Jayson Keeling's See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang, Yeah. City All Over! Go Ape Crazy". arcthemagazine.com. Archived from the original on April 10, 2018. Retrieved 2018-04-09.
 - ^ Benjamin Genocchio (December 26, 2008). "The House Party Spirit in All Its Glory". The New York Times. Retrieved 28 March 2018.
 - ^ "Utopian Vision Born of a Harsh Truth". The New York Times. 2014-04-11. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2018-04-09.
 - ^ "Aljira at 30, Dream and Reality « Aljira, a Center for Contemporary Art". aljira.org. Retrieved 2018-04-09.
 - ^ a b c d e f g h "Jayson Keeling - Exhibition". ArtSlant. Archived from the original on 29 March 2018. Retrieved 28 March 2018.
 - ^ "Jayson Keeling, "See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang, Yeah. City All Over! Go Ape Crazy"". TimeOut. Archived from the original on 29 March 2018. Retrieved 28 March 2018.
 - ^ "The Studio Museum in Harlem". www.studiomuseum.org. Retrieved 2018-04-09.