Derrick Woods-Morrow

Derrick Woods-Morrow's (b.1990) work is a meditation on deviation and disruption, on language and representation and growing up in the American South. Currently based in Chicago and originally from Greensboro, North Carolina, his artistic practice explores black sexual freedoms and the complicated histories concerning access to these freedoms. As he navigates historical archives, he searches for moments, or ‘glitches’ that show alternative queer futures, existing, emboldened, and exacting – Freedom. Together, with other Queer Folx, he creates photographs, moving images, performance, installations, and sculptures that recognize histories they were written out of and future places they wish to occupy. Woods-Morrow’s work questions the very validity of the personal archive, of memory (ever-fleeting), and of being ever-present with oneself. He is questioning the performance of the self untethered from expectation, both in his art, and his life–a new ideal of intimacy, where darkness liberates us, and blackness is inherently queer. Woods-Morrow received his MFA in Photography from the School of Art Institute of Chicago in 2016. His work has since been exhibited in collaboration with Paul Mpagi Sepuya in the 2019 Whitney Biennial; in large group exhibitions at Kunsthal KAdE in the Netherlands, The Contemporary Art Center in New Orleans; and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (where in 2019 he debuted an interactive performance/lecture series titled, Acts of Boyhood Divination). His work was included in Photography Now 2019: THE SEARCHERS, curated by the late Maurice Berger and partner Marvin Heiferman at The Center for Photography at Woodstock; and Down Time: On the Art of Retreat at the Smart Museum Chicago. In Winter of 2019, his second short film, 'much handled things are always soft' debuted in collaboration with the VISUAL AIDS 30th Annual Day With(out) ART programming at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Contemporary Art LA, The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, The Brooklyn Museum, The New Museum and over a hundred institutions worldwide. He is the 2021 Edith and Philip Leonian fellow at the Center of Photography Woodstock, Bemis Residency Recipient, and Antenna Works Fellow; has had residencies at the Fire Island Artist Residency (where as of 2020, he is on the board of directors), Chicago Artists Coalition’s Bolt Residency, ACRE and is a recipient of the 2018 Artadia Award – Chicago. He is a founding member of the Chicago-based collective 'Concerned Black ImageMakers'.