Mark Morrisroe

Morrisroe was 30 years old when he died from an AIDS-related illness. In the final years of his life, Morrisroe produced the extraordinary photomontages that were presented as part of the 2012 Biennial. This series uses photographs and X-ray images of his own body alongside cuttings from pornographic magazines and other ephemera. Many of these works were produced in a makeshift darkroom that he made in his hospital bathroom.

Morrisroe was a prolific artist whose wide-ranging practice focused on photography and performance. He was an instrumental figure in the 1970s punk scene in Boston as well as the art world boom of the 1980s in New York. His photographic work revolved around the friends and lovers of his everyday milieu, and the exploration of his own image and identity. He experimented ceaselessly with the medium of photography, foregrounding its material characteristics through the manipulation of its materials and processes.

Mark Morrisroe (b. 1959 Malden, Massachusetts, d. 1989 Jersey City, New Jersey) lived and worked in Boston and New York, U.S.A. Recent exhibitions include Mark Morrisroe (Museum Villa Stuck, München, Germany, 2012; Fotomuseum Winterthur, Winterthur, Switzerland, 2010-211), From This Moment On (Artists Space, New York, U.S.A., 2011) and Punk. No One is Innocent (Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Austria, 2008).

Mark Morrisroe at Liverpool Biennial 2012

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Photographs, 1986-1988
Mixed media, dimensions variable

Exhibited at Open Eye Gallery