Joshua Leon

Joshua Leon

Joshua Leon is an artist and writer. He received his PhD from the Royal College of Art, London, UK in 2023. In his writing and exhibition making Leon employs a theory of collapse within a broader examination of the lament as a critical space; exploring how archival remembrance, historical research, autobiography and memoir fall into each other. This approach examines the ways in which site, place and material bear witness, codify language and store personal and socio-historical memory. This methodical process is then imagined through presentations of poetic discourse, display, and knowledge production. Leon’s works manifest fluidly through a multitude of forms including writing, silence, music, stained glass, walks, reading, garments, documents and institutional intervention and alteration.

His first publication The Process, published by Mousse and Chisenhale Gallery, winner of the Emerging Art Foundation art writing prize, is the outcome of two years of writing and documenting his own research processes between 2022-2024, as he prepared for his first solo institutional exhibition at Chisenhale Gallery. The publication comprises original writing by Leon alongside archival material. Tracing history, memory and self across time and site, the text traverses locations including a synagogue in Bordeaux, an American bar in Vienna, and a veneer factory in London’s East End to reflect on the experiences of the Jewish diaspora in Europe, and contemporary Jewish life.

Selected exhibitions include: Tactical Spectres, La Ferme du Buisson, Noiselle (2025) The Missing O and E, Chisenhale Gallery, London (2024) Itinéraire Fantôme, CAPC, Bordeaux (2024); Presque Partout, 49 Nord 6 Est – Frac Lorraine, Metz (2024); THE ARCHIVE AS …, Kunstverein München, Munich (2023); Revision, PEER Gallery, London (2022); POST, Barbican, London (2022); Expo en boîte, 49 Nord 6 Est – Frac Lorraine, Metz (2022); Governmental Fires, FUTURA, Prague (2021); Loose Routes Along the Familiar, Madonna del Pozzo, Spoleto (2021); Attendance(s) Close to the Close, Daily Practice, Rotterdam (2020); The Same Tendency, Summer Hall Place, Edinburgh (2019); and Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost, Berlin Biennale, Berlin (2018).

Press
https://vashtimedia.com/joshua-leon-chisenhale-gallery-review-missing-o-and-e/
https://www.apollo-magazine.com/joshua-leon-jewish-history-chisenhale-review/
https://contemporaryartsociety.org/explore/resources/joshua-leon-chisenhale
https://www.timeout.com/london/art/joshua-leon-the-missing-o-and-e

Links
https://www.moussemagazine.it/shop/joshua-leon-the-process/
https://chisenhale.org.uk/exhibition/joshua-leon/
https://www.kunstverein-muenchen.de/en/program/calender/2023/from-june-u-the-archive-as-slippages-joshua-leon-u
https://www.capc-bordeaux.fr/en/residences/joshua-leon
https://open.spotify.com/episode/6OKjT1b5e0cI97vjtyPm0P?si=d4751fe31a0043f3
https://mahler-lewitt.org/residents/joshua-leon
https://www.kw-berlin.de/en/pogo-bar-podcast-joshua-leon/
https://dailypractice.nl/attendances-close-to-the-close/
http://editorialconcreta.org/just-as-bad-as-the-last
https://www.openspacecontemporary.com/projects/writing-space-3/to-say-something-when-there-is-so-little-to-say-by-joshua-leon/

Education

2023 PhD Arts and Humanities, Royal College of Art, London, UK
2017 MA Photography, Royal College of Art, London, UK
2014 BA Photography, University of the Arts, London, UK

Awards, Fellowships and Grants
2024 Emerging Art Foundation Writing Prize, London, UK
2019-2023 London Arts and Humanities Research Stipend, London, UK

Publications
2024 The Process, Chisenhale Gallery & Mousse, ed. Olivia Aherne and Amy Jones

Forthcoming
2026 The Tree that Burns, Mahler+Lewitt Studios, Spoleto, Italy
2025 Grapewatching, South Parade, London

Solo Exhibitions
2024 The Missing O and E, Chisenhale Gallery, London, UK
2021 Loose Routes Along the Familiar, Madonna del Pozzo, Spoleto, Italy
Attendance(s) Close to the Close, Daily Practice, Rotterdam, Netherlands

Kounsel (w/Abbas Zahedi)
2024 AIRE, CAPC, Bordeaux, France
Absence, Chisenhale Gallery
2022 Revision, PEER Gallery, London, UK
   POST, Barbican, London, UK

Selected Group Shows
2025 Burn the Diaries, Read the Out Loud, Kunsthalle Karlsplatz, Vienna, Austria
Tacital Spectres, La Ferme du Buisson, Paris, France
2024 Itinéraire Fantôme, CAPC, Bordeaux, France
Presque Partout (almost everywhere), 49 Nord 6 Est, Frac Lorraine, Metz, France
2023 “Archive as……Slippages”, Kunstverein München, Munich, Germany
2022 Expo in a Box, 49 Nord 6 Est, Frac Lorraine, Metz, France
An Incomplete A-Z of Art and Poetry, Mahler +Lewitt, London, UK
2021 Governmental Fires, Futura, Prague, Czech Republic
2020 RIEN N’AURA EU LIEU (Nothing will have taken place), Arles, France
2019 Pendre la Crémaillère w/ Jean Feline, Light Eye Mind, London, UK
Rehearsing the Real, Peckham24, London, UK
The Same Tendency, Summer Hall Place, Edinburgh, UK
2018 Adventitious Encounters, Open Space Contemporary, London, UK
FALLEN w/ Adam Glibbery, Studio Riverlight, London, UK
INHALE w/ Adam Glibbery, Filet, London, UK

Selected Performances/ Workshops/ Conferences/ Public Program & Interventions
2024 Fragmentary Memories (workshop), Nunnery Gallery, London
An Evening of Music and Poetry, Chisenhale Gallery, London
2022 ‘Tears of Conceptualism’, ARCO Madrid, Spain
2021 Passanten, Warwick University, UK
Lamentation No.1: A Smuggler's Guide to Loss, PogoBar, KW, Berlin, Germany
2020 An Unfinished History of Glass pt 1 & 2, Artists and Allies, Berlin, DE
Long Table: Lament, South London Gallery, London, UK
The Conch, South London Gallery, London, UK

Selected Writing
2022 Salvage Rhythms, Arnolfini, Bristol, UK
Lounging in Liberty, Galeria Piu, Bologna, Italy
2021 Just as bad as the Last, Editorial Concreta, Spain, Online
As if you Cared, Care(less), MA Biblioteque, London, UK
2020 High Tides im Eiscafé, Galerie in der Wassermühle Trittau, Hamburg, Germany
An Unfinished History of Glass, Prova Research Journal, UK
  To say something when there is so little to say, Open Space Contemporary, UK
Sociality in the time of Grief, Still Point Journal, UK
2019 Sam Williams at SMH AGM, Fad Magazine, UK
2018 Howie Street Quadruplet, Everyday Press, London, UK
Static, The N.O.N, Online Journal for Contemporary Writing, Berlin, DE
The Poetics of Self Help, International Art Awards for Criticism, UK & China

Selected Teaching
2025 Associate Lecturer, Royal College of Art, London, UK
Associate Lecturer, Royal College of Art, London, UK
2024 Visiting Lecturer, London South Bank Univeristy, London, UK
Associate Lecturer, Royal College of Art, London, UK
2023 Visiting Lecturer, London South Bank Univeristy, London, UK
   Associate Lecturer, Royal College of Art, London, UK
2023 Visiting Lecturer, Akadamie der Bildenden Künste München, Munich, Germany
Visiting Lecturer, Vilnius Academy of Arts, Vilnius, Lithuania

Selected Residencies
2025 Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Austria
2023 Kunstverein München, Munich, Germany
CAPC, Bordeaux, France (in association with FLUXUS)
2021 Mahler + LeWitt, Spoleto, Italy
PINK, Manchester, UK

Public Collections
49 Nord 6 Est - Frac Lorraine, Metz, France