Mark Armijo McKnight and Drew Sawyer in Conversation

On the occasion of his exhibition Decreation, currently on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art through January 5, Mason Gross’s Mark Armijo McKnight will be in conversation with Drew Sawyer, the show’s curator.

Please join us for a lively discussion about Decreation, photography, and the curatorial challenges that arise when exhibiting queer art today. A reception will follow.

Mark Armijo McKnight is Assistant Professor of Expanded Photography at the Mason Gross School of the Arts. His work has been exhibited internationally and featured extensively in prestigious art journals and the popular press. A 2023 Guggenheim fellow, McKnight is also recipient of the 2019 Aperture Portfolio Prize, The 2020 Light Work Photo Book Award, and a 2020 Rema Hort Mann Emerging Artist Grant. His work is in the collection of The Henry Art Gallery (Seattle, WA) the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles, CA) and The Getty Museum (Los Angeles, CA). His first monograph, Heaven is a Prison, was published in September 2020.

Drew Sawyer is an art historian and the Sondra Gilman Curator of Photography at the Whitney Museum of American Art. He received his PhD from Columbia University and has held curatorial positions at the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Columbus Museum of Art, where he co-founded the Center for Art and Social Engagement (CASE) through a major grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.