CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 11/11/2022

'Jimmy DeSana: Submission' opens at Brooklyn Museum

"Marker Cones" (1982) is reproduced from Jimmy DeSana: Submission, published to accompany the highly anticipated exhibition opening this week at the Brooklyn Museum. The first comprehensive book on the compelling yet always unsettling photographer, who was not well known outside of the NYC underground in his short lifetime, this book makes the case for genius. "Jimmy DeSana was a compact bundle of contradictions," Laurie Simmons writes, "a man of few words, rather bashful socially (but it was often impossible to get off the phone with him). He was out all night but completely punctual and reliable by day, a semi-detached student and keen observer of the human condition. … I am immensely grateful for every moment Jimmy and I spent together, for every freezing second I floated naked in a pool or held an awkward pose for way too long, for this was my graduate program in photography—this is really where I learned to make a picture … standing within Jimmy’s quiet but determined force field, emulating his laserlike focus and his ultimate belief that making art was a space to play and dream."