The Latest: January Artist News
Menu
News About Resources Support Contact
Awards
Disability
Culture
Programs
Awards
Disability
Culture
Programs
News About Resources Support Contact
Lauren Deutsch headshot

Lauren Deutsch

Photographer
2017 Make a Wave
Visual Arts

Lauren was born in Chicago in 1956 and raised on Chicago’s south side. She ended her formal training in the mid 70s and became an autodidact, beginning a body of work investigating creative improvised music and documenting its community of creators. She was inexorably drawn to their bold truth telling and creative liberation theology; a vow to transform a legacy of tyranny and injustice into freedom and exultation.

She began her tenure as executive director of the Jazz Institute of Chicago in 1996, photographing the story of the Jazz Institute and its service to Chicago’s jazz community over two decades. Deeply inspired by the experience of collective creativity, it grounded the collaborative work she performed over 22 years in organizing, curating, and presenting musicians performing in Chicago and internationally. She created places for community to gather, where congregants came together for spiritual union and reunion. She created innumerable opportunities for new work to be conceived and performed, and photographed it all, rendering moments of transformation into textures of color and spectrums of light. She stepped down from her role as executive director in 2019 to focus more deeply on her own artistic endeavors.

Her work is included in dozens of publications, including The Freedom Principle: Experiments in Art and Music 1965-Now, the catalog for an exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art celebrating the 50th anniversary of Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) that included ten of her photographs; and The City Was Yellow: Chicago Jazz and Improvised Music 1980 to 2010. Lauren has had multiple exhibitions in Europe, Asia, and the U.S. In 2015 a retrospective Lauren Deutsch: A Musical Metamorphosis: Photographs from 1979-2015, was mounted at the University of Chicago’s Reva and David Logan Center. In 2023 she received the Lifetime Achievement in Photography Award from the Jazz Journalist Association.

Lauren Deutsch's Website
A woman playing a flute sits at the center, with swirls of incandescence emanating from her flute 2018 Nicole Mitchell © Lauren Deutsch

Featured Artworks

  • Lauren Deutsch artwork 2022 William Parker 2022 William Parker © Lauren Deutsch
  • A Grand Master of Japanese traditional dance, Yoshinojo is standing erect with a fan in her outstretched hand, the spirits of her ancestors floating above her in a shimmering white cloud. 2022 Yoshinojo Fujima 2022 Yoshinojo Fujima ©Lauren Deutsch
  • A saxophone player with a jaunty hat erupts in green and blue sound light patterns 2023 Roscoe Mitchell 2023 Roscoe Mitchell ©Lauren Deutsch
  • Lauren Deutsch artwork 2022 Linda May Han Oh 2022 Linda May Han Oh © Lauren Deutsch
  • A master Taiko drummer, Kioto is dressed in yellow, gently swaying as she percusses two Taiko drums. She is sitting near a large Taiko drum that has dissolved in different colored textures and light. 2019 Kioto Aoki 2019 Kioto Aoki ©Lauren Deutsch
  • A man holds a large hand behind his head while music around him 2022 Sun Ra 2022 Sun Ra © Lauren Deutsch
  • Woman surrounded by gold and orange sound waves with multiple hands on cello strings 2020 Tomeka Reid 2020 Tomeka Reid © Lauren Deutsch
  • A drummer plays with gold and white musical thoughts streaming out of his head and around his drums et 2021 Max Roach 2021 Max Roach © Lauren Deutsch
  • Lauren Deutsch artwork 2022 Marlene Rosenberg 2022 Marlene Rosenberg © Lauren Deutsch
  • A saxophone player is in the center of gold and orange and green swirls of energy emanating from his horn 2019 Edward Wilkerson 2019 Edward Wilkerson © Lauren Deutsch
  • A man at the right holds his arm throws spirals of energy above a row of musicians who have dissolved into pure music 2020 Great Black Music Ensemble conducted by Wadada Leo Smith 2020 Great Black MUsic Ensemble conducted by Wadada Leo Smith © Lauren Deutsch

Lauren Deutsch has crowd-funded a project with 3AP

  • Tangible Sound: Immersions

    by: Lauren Deutsch
    • $10,755 raised of $6,000 goal
    • 0 Days 0:00:00 LEFT
      • 3Arts matched
      • 179% funded

    Imagine being able to walk inside the thunderous sound of a taiko drum or feel enveloped by the sinuous sounds of a saxophone or cello or bass. What if your body became part of a visual mapping of colors and …

    Read more about Tangible Sound: Immersions