Leon Mostovoy is a transgender artist who has been photographing the front lines of queer and political art movements for decades. Mostovoy (formerly Tracy) started his queer art career in the 1980s producing erotic images for On Our Backs magazine. He has photographed for Quim magazine, composed book covers for Leslie Feinberg and Lynda Hart, been featured in Nothing but the Girl: The Blatant Lesbian Image, published in The Portable Lower East Side and Low Rent: A Decade Of Prose And Photographs From The Portable Lower East Side, produced several acclaimed exhibitions, and curated a myriad of shows highlighting the LGBTQ+ community. Mostovoy’s most recent projects explore transgender identity, transformation, sexuality, and gender roles in contemporary U.S. society.
Mostovoy’s early photographic series explored the struggles and triumphs of women as they strived for strength and independence while living outside the parameters of heteronormative expectations. The purpose of his work is to give a voice to the unheard. This is most evident in his documentation of sex workers, queer erotica, women ex-cons, transgender men, and the AIDS pandemic.
Mostovoy has participated in over fifty shows, including solo and group photography and and multi-media exhibitions. He has collaborated with performance artists: Divianna Ingravallo, Annie Sprinkle, Julie Tolentino, and Ron Athey; as well as filmmaker Cheryl Dunye; activist Angela Davis; and many more extraordinary people on the revolutionary front.
Mostovoy’s Death of My Daughter installation was featured in Romania in 2011 to encourage awareness and acceptance of the Romanian transgender community. That same year, he presented his first retrospective, (My) Queer (R)evolution, at Temple University in Philadelphia. In January 2015, Mostovoy’s work from the 1980-90s was inducted into the ONE Archives at the USC Library – the largest LGBTQ+ archive in the world – and was accompanied by an opening exhibition of his 1987-88 photography series, Market Street Cinema.
Mostovoy’s opus, Transfigure Project, was created as a traditional book and photographic exhibition in 2013. Its success launched an interactive website in 2015 to promote accessibility in the trans community. The Transfigure Project installation continues to be exhibited internationally (with a limited edition of 250 hardbound copies). A one-of-a-kind, life-size edition of Transfigure is was included in the Leslie-Lohman Museum Collection. Transfigure may be found online or at various stores in Los Angeles and New York.
He currently resides in Southern California.