Lissa Rivera


Lissa Rivera 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.
At the Museum of Sex, Rivera curated exhibitions that broadened the institution's focus to include contemporary art and underrepresented voices, including the first U.S. museum survey of Surrealist Leonor Fini and the museum's first bilingual exhibition.

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.

Career

Photography

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, evoking Eisenhower-era femininity, creates tension with its contemporary gender politics. The collaborative structure resolves the apparent anachronism, which positions Lillis as an active participant in his own representation, rather than a passive object of the male gaze. The work's impact comes from Rivera's conveying Lillis's evident pleasure, and the series's saturated palette, balanced compositions, and deliberate historical references.
Her following series, The Silence of Spaces, 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.

Curation

Rivera served as Associate Curator at the Museum of Sex in New York, where she organized exhibitions that expanded the museum's engagement with contemporary art and historically marginalized voices.
She co-curated NSFW Female Gaze 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, 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.

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.

Personal life

Rivera's partner is BJ Lillis, who is genderqueer and has been the subject of Rivera's photographic work.

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
  • 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

    Awards and honors

  • 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