Paul Mpagi Sepuya (b. 1982, San Bernardino, CA) is a Los Angeles-based artist working in photography whose projects weave together histories and possibilities of portraiture, queer and homoerotic networks of production and collaboration, and the material and conceptual potential of blackness at the heart of the medium.
Sepuya has been the subject of recent solo exhibitions at Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, England; Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, Germany; Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA; and Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE. A survey of work from 2006-2018 was presented at CAM St. Louis and the Blaffer Art Museum, Houston, accompanied by a monograph published by CAM St. Louis and Aperture Foundation. Other recent exhibitions include those at the V&A Photography Centre, the Guggenheim Museum, the Getty Museum, and a project for the 2019 Whitney Biennial. He is Associate Professor in Media Arts at the University of California San Diego.
Sepuya's work resides in the collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Getty and Guggenheim Museums, the Hammer Museum, LACMA, MoCA Los Angeles, MoMA, SFMoMA, the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Tate, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, among others.
Exhibitions

TRANCE
10 Jan – 1 Mar 2025
Bortolami

Exposure
27 Jan – 5 May 2024
Nottingham Contemporary

ICP at 50: From the Collection, 1845-2019
24 Jan – 6 May 2024
International Center of Photography

Daylight Studio / Dark Room Studio
25 Nov 2022 – 26 Feb 2023
PHOXXI at Deichtohallen Hamburg

D.R.M.P.
13 May – 18 Jun 2022
55 Walker

A Century of the Artist’s Studio 1920-2020
24 Feb – 5 Jun 2022
Whitechapel Gallery, London

Black American Portraits
7 Nov 2021 – 7 Apr 2022
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Masculinities: Liberation Through Photography
13 Jul – 23 Aug 2020
Barbican Centre, London; Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin; LUMA Foundation, Arles; FOMU, Antwerp

Paul Mpagi Sepuya
19 Oct 2019 – 14 Mar 2020
Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis

Paul Mpagi Sepuya
19 Oct 2019 – 14 Mar 2020
Blaffer Art Museum

Once. Again. Photographs in Series
9 Jul – 10 Nov 2019
Getty Museum

Implicit Tensions: Mapplethorpe Now
4 Jul 2019 – 5 Jan 2020
Guggenheim

2019 Whitney Biennial
17 May – 27 Oct 2019
Whitney Museum of American Art

Double Enclosure
14 Sep – 18 Nov 2018
Fotomuseum Amsterdam (FOAM)

Being: New Photography 2018
18 Mar – 19 Aug 2018
MoMA

Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon
27 Sep 2017 – 21 Jan 2018
New Museum

Evidence of Accumulation
14 Jul – 23 Oct 2011
Studio Museum Harlem
Press
Harry Tafoya February's Must-See Art Shows in NYC and Beyond Paper Magazine Feb 2025Max Norman Photography Takes Over New York Galleries Art in America Jan 2025Megan N. Liberty The Best Art Books of 2024 The Brooklyn Rail Dec 2024Reuben Esien Paul Mpagi Sepuya Lays Bare the Workings of the Studio Frieze Feb 2024Ravi Ghosh Meet me in the darkroom: Paul Mpagi Sepuya’s 25 years of Queer reflexivity British Journal of Photography Feb 2024Chloe Stead The Top Ten Shows in Europe in 2023 Frieze Dec 2023Evan Moffitt Paul Sepuya holds a mirror up to the medium, in conversation with Ryan McNamara Document Nov 2023Matthieu Jacquet Du studio photo à la backroom, comment Paul Mpagi Sepuya révèle le caché Numéro Jul 2023Justin Torres Here is a portrait of an L.A. artist having an intimate conversation among friends Los Angeles Times Mar 2023Adam Smith-Perez In the Studio: Paul Mpagi Sepuya on portraiture, queer space, and zinemaking art21 Sep 2022John Vincler What to See in N.Y.C. Galleries Right Now The New York Times Jun 2022Aindrea Emelife All Seeing Eye Wallpaper* Sep 2021Ashton Cooper Paul Mpagi Sepuya at Vielmetter Los Angeles Artforum, Vol. 59 Sep 2020Eddie Silva Artist Notes from a Pandemic: Paul Mpagi Sepuya CAM St. Louis May 2020Lanre Bakare A New Mapplethorpe? The queer zine legend reinventing the nude The Guardian Apr 2020Rahel Aima Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Contemporary Art Museum St Louis 17 May – 18 August Art Review Oct 2019Andrea K. Scott Paul Mpagi Sepuya Mines the Queer History of the Portrait Studio The New Yorker Mar 2019Martha Schwendener New York Art Galleries: What To See Right Now - Paul Mpagi Sepuya The New York Times Mar 2019David Velasco Project: Paul Mpagi Sepuya Artforum Mar 2019Ariel Goldberg In The Room Art in America Apr 2018Arthur Lubow What’s New in Photography? Humanism, MoMa Says The New York Times Mar 2018Ikechukwu Onyewuenyi Paul Mpagi Sepuya at team (bungalow) Contemporary Art Review LA Feb 2018Barry Schwabsky Playing with Mirrors: Two artists push the limits of what cameras can do The Nation May 2017Philip Griffith Paul Mpagi Sepuya: Figures, Grounds and Studies The Brooklyn Rail Mar 2017Ian Bourland Critic’s Pick: Paul Mpagi Sepuya at Yancey Richardson Artforum Mar 2017David Everett Howe The Expanded Photograph ArtReview May 2014Wayne Koestenbaum My 1980s and Other Essays Farrar, Strauss and Giroux 2013Joseph Akel 500 Words: Paul Mpagi Sepuya Artforum May 2012Holland Cotter Art in Review – 50 Artists Photograph the Future The New York Times May 2010Publications

Paul Mpagi Sepuya: Dark Room A–Z
Aperture
2024

ORIFICE + APERTURE
TBW Books
2022

Paul Mpagi Sepuya
Aperture
2020
