1994/1995

Laundry

American, born 1961

In the 1980s and 1990s Leonard was a member of ACT UP, an artist activist group organized to address AIDS awareness and government inaction toward the epidemic, which was hitting the arts community especially hard. She was also involved with the feminist art collectives Gang and Fierce Pussy. Unlike her work with those groups, and other photographic projects that depict bodies in provocative ways, Leonard’s pictures can hardly be said to confront the viewer. They stick to photography’s humble role as an observational tool and their tone is contemplative.