About
Sean Fader is currently an Assistant Professor at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in the Department of Photography and Imaging. Fader received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, his MA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, and his BFA from the New School in New York City.
Queer American Memorials opens at the Institute of Contemporary Art San José on October 2, 2026, running through February 21, 2027. The exhibition presents the project’s first California memorial in progress, honoring Alina Marie Barragan (1980–2000), a Latinx trans youth and San José native, and traces the arc from Insufficient Memory to the living memorial now being built with Alina’s community.
Fader is represented by Brigitte Mulholland, Paris, where his solo exhibition With Wit We Rise: The Fabulous Rebellion of the F.A.G. opened during Paris Photo week in November 2025; excerpts were shown at Basel Social Club in June 2026. His previous solo exhibition, Sugar Daddy: Dear Danielle, was at Denny Gallery, New York. Insufficient Memory is in the collections of the Buffalo AKG Art Museum and the Brooklyn Museum, and has toured nationally in Difference Machines: Technology and Identity in Contemporary Art, which originated at the Buffalo AKG. His work was selected by Mickalene Thomas for the Brooklyn Artists Exhibition, the Brooklyn Museum’s two-hundredth anniversary show. His work has been exhibited throughout the United States and internationally in Dubai, Canada, Mexico, Hong Kong, France, and England. His exhibition history includes Peep Show at Anton Kern Gallery, Thirst/Trap at Denny Dimin Gallery (solo), Insufficient Memory (solo) at Antenna Gallery in New Orleans, On the Map at Denny Gallery Hong Kong, 365 Profile Pics (solo) at SPRING/BREAK Art Show with Denny Gallery in New York, #wishingpelt (solo) at SPRING/BREAK Art Show, and White Boys at Haverford College. With Maureen Towey and the MASS Design Group’s Public Memory and Memorial Lab he is building Queer American Memorials, a national system of site markers for queer people killed in hate crimes between 1999 and 2009. Fader was named a NYFA Fellow in 2013 and A Blade of Grass Fellow for 2012–13, and received the Magenta Foundation’s Flash Forward Award for Emerging Photographers in 2012. He has held residencies at Loghaven, Art Omi, the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Yaddo, Stove Works, and The Wassaic Project. His work has been covered in BOMB, MOMUS, The New York Times, Hyperallergic, The British Journal of Photography, Whitewall, Art F City, Humble Arts Foundation, The Huffington Post, WWD, and Slate.