Photographer and scholar Ace Lehner is a leading voice examining the complexities of representation in photography, with a focus on queer and trans people, as well as in the age of social media. Through photographic projects and performances such as Gender is a Drag and Barbershop: The Art of Queer Failure, Lehner uses visual cues and gestures to explore the concept of multifaceted identity. Through writing and teaching, Lehner further examines the history of looking and portraiture in photography while also constructing new critical frameworks for future imagemaking.

Join us for the next ICP Lessons, a three-day lecture series hosted by David Campany, with Lehner focused on portraiture and representation.

Registration

Tickets are $35 for general audience and $30 for ICP members—join today!

Tickets include access to all three lectures and must be purchased by the start time of the first lecture in the series.

Members, log in or use your discount code to receive your discount. If you have issues processing your payment, please email membership@icp.org.

Please note: We make every effort to record each session and make it available to participants up to 14 days after the series, however recordings are not guaranteed. We recommend participants to tune in live if there is a session they don’t want to miss. No refunds will be given for missed lectures.

Schedule

Session 1: Wednesday, March 17, 1–2 PM ET

Finding the Portrait: Lehner shares their own photographic portrait work outlining their approach to representation in photography and capturing a person’s multifaceted identity.

Session 2: Thursday, March 18, 1–2 PM ET

Looking at Portraits: Lehner shares critical research and writing on the subjects of self-representation in the digital age, identity, and unfixing traditional ways of looking at portrait photography.

Session 3: Friday, March 19, 1–2 PM ET

Informing the Making: In the final session of ICP Lessons, Lehner discusses their strategies for folding research into the making process, the importance of collaborating, and shares recent projects.

Interested in learning more from Ace Lehner? Registration is now open for ICP Courses Queer Photography (Mondays, February 22 through April 26) and Portraiture and Representation (Thursdays, April 8 through June 10). Learn more about ICP’s courses and workshops.

This program will take place on Zoom. Those who register to attend will receive a confirmation email with a link located at the bottom of the email under ‘Important Information’ to join the lecture through a computer or mobile device.

We recommend participants download the Zoom app on their device prior to the program. Learn how to download the latest version of Zoom to your computer or mobile device.

If you do not receive the link by 11 AM on the day of the lecture or if you have questions about the virtual lecture, please contact: programs@icp.org.

ICP Lessons is an online lecture series offering an introduction to ICP’s Continuing Education courses and workshops. Each session is organized around a central theme within photographic practice and offers insights and skills through conversations and instructional lectures by ICP faculty, scholars, and leading photographic voices around the globe.

Speakers

Ace Lehner is an interdisciplinary photo-based artist and scholar specializing in critical engagement with identity and representation; history, theory, and criticism of contemporary art; visual studies; photography theory, queer and trans theory, and critical race studies. Lehner’s artistic practice often embraces collaboration and primarily utilizes photography and video to mine the complex relation between representations and the constitution of identities. Lehner’s work has been exhibited internationally, has recently appeared at al Museo del Barrio in New York, and will be featured in a solo exhibition at Practice Gallery in Philadelphia in 2021. Lehner has chaired panels at the College Art Association Conference and has been published in Art Journal open, REFRACT, The Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art, The Journal on Images and Culture, and Feral Fabric. Currently, Lehner is an Artist in Residence at Artist-In-Vacancy, in Newburgh New York, and the editor of the forthcoming book From Self-Portrait to Selfie: Contemporary Art and Self-Representation in the Social Media Age published by MDPI Books (Switzerland) and has a chapter forthcoming on trans selfies that will be published in a book on selfies by Routledge. Lehner holds an MFA in Photography from California College of the Art and a PhD in Visual Studies from the University of California at Santa Cruz. Lehner is currently based in New York and teaches at Parsons, the Dia Foundation, and the International Center of Photography.

David Campany is ICP’s managing director of programs, and a writer, editor, and curator