Sandy Skoglund

Sandy Skoglund (b. 1946) is an American conceptual and installation artist known for her distinctive staged photography that blurs the boundaries between sculpture, performance, installation, and image-making. She creates surreal, color-saturated environments filled with handcrafted props and repetitive visual motifs, which she then photographs in large format—transforming ephemeral installations into lasting photographic works. Skoglund’s highly constructed tableaus explore themes of consumerism, domesticity, and the uncanny, often featuring animals, food, and doubled figures in absurd or disorienting settings.

Born in Weymouth, Massachusetts, Skoglund studied studio art and art history at Smith College from 1964 to 1968. She pursued graduate studies at the University of Iowa, where she earned an M.A. in 1971 and an M.F.A. in painting in 1972, focusing on filmmaking, intaglio printmaking, and multimedia art. After moving to New York City in 1972, she began working as a conceptual artist engaged in process-driven practices like mark-making and photocopying. By the late 1970s, her interest in documenting ephemeral conceptual works led her to teach herself photography—a decision that would become central to her career.

Skoglund emerged as a major figure in staged photography during the 1980s, alongside artists such as Cindy Sherman and David LaChapelle. Her immersive environments—such as the iconic Revenge of the Goldfish (1981) and Radioactive Cats (1980)—are built from scratch using handmade sculptural elements, vividly painted rooms, and carefully choreographed human models. These dreamlike scenes are both playful and unsettling, often suggesting social anxieties hidden beneath surface-level absurdity.

Her photographs and installations have been exhibited internationally and are held in the permanent collections of major museums including the Brooklyn Museum, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. She has received numerous honors, including the Koopman Distinguished Chair in the Visual Arts from the Hartford Art School, the Trustees Award for Excellence from Rutgers University, an individual artist grant from the New York State Foundation for the Arts, and a National Endowment for the Arts grant.

Skoglund continues to live and work in Jersey City, New Jersey. Her inventive practice has made a lasting contribution to the development of staged photography and installation art, and her work remains influential for its meticulous craft, visual wit, and exploration of psychological and cultural tensions.