Lissa Rivera
Lissa Rivera (born 1984) is an American artist and curator whose work examines gender identity, sexuality, and the construction of femininity through staged portraiture. Her series Beautiful Boy, portraits of her genderqueer partner in period dress and interiors, has been widely exhibited and won the Magnum Photography Award for Portraiture.
Lissa Rivera
Juniordealer · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Name
- Lissa Rivera
- Born
- 1984
- Education
- * The Art Institute of Boston (BFA)
- Field
- * Photography
- Nationality
- United States
- Occupation
- photographer · curator · film producer
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Documentary summary
Lissa Rivera (born 1984) is an American artist and curator whose work examines gender identity, sexuality, and the construction of femininity through staged portraiture. Her series Beautiful Boy, portraits of her genderqueer partner in period dress and interiors, has been widely exhibited and won the Magnum Photography Award for Portraiture.
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Lissa Rivera (born 1984) is a curator, film producer and photographer, of American nationality.
The curator was educated at School of Visual Arts and The Art Institute of Boston. Lissa Rivera worked for Museum of Sex and worked in New York City.
Composed from admitted, traceable facts · 26 September 2026
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wikidata · Q136433381 · wikipedia · Lissa Rivera
In this article
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Lissa Rivera • Born — 1984 • Education — * The Art Institute of Boston (BFA) • School of Visual Arts (MFA) • Field — * Photography • curation • filmmaking • Notable Works — Beautiful Boy series • Partner — BJ Lillis • Website — lissarivera.com
Early life and education
Early life and education
Rivera grew up outside Rochester, New York. Rivera received her BFA from the Art Institute of Boston and her MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York, where she developed an interest in the social history of photography and how identity, sexuality, and gender evolve in relation to material culture. Rivera worked in the collections at the Burns Archive and the Museum of the City of New York, where she also has taught.
Curation
Curation
Rivera served as Associate Curator at the Museum of Sex in New York. She co-curated NSFW Female Gaze (2017) with VICEs Marina Garcia-Vasquez, an exhibition exploring women's sexual perspectives and desire through photography, illustration, and film. She curated Canon: Juan José Barboza-Gubo & Andrew Mroczek (2017–2018), the museum's first bilingual exhibition, designed to reach New York's Spanish-speaking audience. In 2018, she curated Leonor Fini: Theatre of Desire, the first U.S. museum survey of the Surrealist artist's work, including paintings, film, furniture, costume, and set designs.
Personal life
Personal life
Rivera's partner is BJ Lillis, who is genderqueer and has been the subject of Rivera's photographic work.
Exhibitions
Exhibitions
• Solo • 2017: Modern Love, ClampArt, New York • 2017: Beautiful Boy, ClampArt, New York • 2018: Beautiful Boy, Newport Art Museum, Newport, Rhode Island • 2018: Beautiful Boy, Millbrook School, Millbrook, New York • Group • 2017: NSFW Female Gaze, Museum of Sex, New York (co-curator and exhibiting artist) • 2017: Non-Binary, Centre Never Apart, Montreal • 2019: Transamerica/n: Gender, Identity, Appearance Today, McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas • 2019: American Truth, SVA Chelsea Gallery, New York • 2019: Photography After Stonewall, Soho Photo Gallery, New York
Recognition
Recognition
• 2008: National Museum of Women in Arts, "Woman to Watch" • 2016: Griffin Museum Peter Urban Legacy Award • 2016: Feature Shoot Emerging Photography Award • 2017: D&AD Next Photographer Shortlist • 2017: Magnum Photography Awards, Winner, Portrait Category
Filmmaking
In 2024, Rivera served as producer on the HBO documentary series Chimp Crazy. The series was nominated for Emmy Awards for Outstanding Writing and Outstanding Picture Editing.
Photography
• Illustration — Mirror with Jewels (2015), from Rivera's Beautiful Boy series. • Illustration — Gallery director Sherri Littlefield views a photograph from Rivera's Beautiful Boy series at ClampArt. Rivera's photographic work explores the construction of gender and identity through staged portraiture. Her Beautiful Boy series, which began in 2014, features Rivera's genderqueer partner BJ Lillis in vintage women's clothing within period interiors, performing various feminine personae. The series references old master paintings, classic Hollywood cinema, and the photography of Cecil Beaton, Cindy Sherman, and Larry Sultan. Collaboration between a cisgender female photographer and a genderqueer subject is central to the series. Beautiful Boys vintage aesthetic evokes Eisenhower-era femininity while its gender politics are contemporary. Because the images are made collaboratively, Lillis is an active participant in his own representation rather than a passive object of the male gaze, and his evident pleasure in the personae comes through in the photographs. Her following series, The Silence of Spaces (2018), was photographed in a former seminary. The images show both Rivera and Lillis in compositions that echo Renaissance art, suggesting that exploring archetypes of the feminine engages both participants beyond a single gender identity. Rivera is represented by ClampArt in New York. Her work is included in the permanent collections of the Danforth Art, Kennedy Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and Newport Art Museum.
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Lissa Rivera. Photographic Resource Center.
- 2.Wolin, Joseph R. Picturing the Gender Other: On Lissa Rivera's Beautiful Boy and Juan José Barboza-Gubo and Andrew Mroczek's Virgenes de la Puerta. Public. 31. 62. 75–91. December 2020. 10.1386/public_00039_1.
- 3.LaBouvier, Chaédria. Photographer's Arresting Images Test Boundaries of Being Gender Fluid in America. Harper's Bazaar. May 31, 2017.
- 4.Beautiful Boy: Photographs and Text by Lissa Rivera. LensCulture.
- 5.McDermon, Daniel. Sex, Surrealism and de Sade: The Forgotten Female Artist Leonor Fini. The New York Times. November 6, 2018.
- 6.Jump, Rachel. Lissa Rivera. Aint-Bad. November 29, 2015.
- 7.Halm, Dan. SVA Alumnus Lissa Rivera's Photos Challenge the Conventions of Gender Roles. School of Visual Arts. December 17, 2018.
- 8.Gesture of the Still Image. Kennedy Museum of Art. January 17, 2023.
- 9.Lissa Rivera: Beautiful Boy. Newport Art Museum.
- 10.Saxena, Jaya. Figuring Out the Female Gaze at the Museum of Sex. Elle. June 21, 2017.
- 11.Clarke, David. First Bilingual Museum of Sex Exhibition Highlights LGBTQ Life in Peru. Out. October 20, 2017.
- 12.Davis, Scarlett. An Interview with Lissa Rivera. Musée Magazine. October 9, 2018.
- 13.Diaz, Jenna Adrian. Why Isn't Leonor Fini as Famous as the Other (Male) Surrealists?. Vulture. December 5, 2018.
- 14.Mulcahy, Susan. Glimpsing a Soon-to-Vanish Surrealist World in Chelsea. The New York Times. October 28, 2021.
- 15.Warner Bros. Discovery. HBO Original Four-Part Documentary Series 'Chimp Crazy' Debuts August 18. August 2024.
- 16.Chimp Crazy. Television Academy.
- 17.Lissa Rivera Exhibition. Newport Art Museum. 2018.
- 18.Lissa Rivera: Interview. Never Apart.
- 19.Transamerica/n: Gender, Identity, Appearance Today. McNay Art Museum. June 20, 2019.
- 20.Lens-Based Artists Document 'American Truth' in SVA's 2019 Alumni Exhibition. SVA Features.
- 21.June 2019 Exhibition. SoHo Photo Gallery. May 1, 2019.
- 22.Director's Desk: Throwback Thursday—Women to Watch. National Museum of Women in the Arts. June 11, 2020.
- 23.22nd Juried Show – The Peter Urban Legacy Exhibition. Griffin Museum of Photography.
- 24.Feature Shoot Announces Emerging Photography Award Winners. Digital Photography Review.
- 25.Lissa Rivera. Photo Kathmandu.
References
Citations
References
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The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 17 August 2026.
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