Artist Talk: Elle Pérez

For photographer Elle Pérez, whose work is currently featured in the Aperture traveling exhibition Orlando at Princeton University Art Museum, the camera is an instrument of recognition, creating intimate documents of community relationships. Pérez’s multifaceted practice of portrait, landscape, and observational photography centers on the complexity of personal identity. The artist will discuss images, identity, and storytelling across their work, and will be introduced by Chief Curator Juliana Ochs Dweck. The exhibition Orlando is organized by Aperture, New York. Guest Curated by Tilda Swinton.

Elle Pérez (born in the Bronx, 1989) lives and works in New York City. Recent solo exhibitions include Devotions (2021), Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; from sun to sun (2019), Public Art Fund, New York; and Diablo (2018), MoMA PS1, Queens. Pérez’s work has been included in group exhibitions at the Renaissance Society, Chicago; Barbican Centre, London; Brooklyn Museum; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. They are currently an assistant professor of art, film, and visual studies at Harvard University, and dean at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, New York.

Artist Portrait of Elle Pérez. Image courtesy the artist and 47 Canal, New York. Photo: Bryson Rand