Jimmy Desana: Submission

Meer over het boek

This overview highlights the work of Jimmy DeSana, a pioneering yet underrecognized figure in New York's 1970s and 1980s art, music, and film scenes. It situates his life and work within countercultural and queer contexts in both the American South and New York, emphasizing his involvement in mail art, punk, No Wave music, and artist collectives. DeSana's first major project, 101 Nudes, emerged in Atlanta during the gay liberation movement. After relocating to New York in 1973, he became deeply embedded in queer networks, collaborating with General Idea and Ray Johnson on zines and mail art, while documenting the genderqueer street performances of Stephen Varble. By the mid-1970s, he was a key figure in New York's No Wave scene, creating portraits of central figures and designing album covers for Talking Heads and James Chance. His book Submission, made with William S. Burroughs, humorously staged scenes from an S&M manual, exploring the body as an object and the performance of desire. An early adopter of color photography, DeSana produced his renowned series, Suburban, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, examining gender, sexuality, and consumer capitalism in surreal, humorous ways. Following his HIV diagnosis, he shifted to abstraction, employing experimental techniques to challenge photographic norms.