Moyra Davey (Canadian, born 1958) attended Montreal’s Concordia University and the University of California, San Diego. She now lives and works in New York. Photographing in The Museum of Modern Art’s library, Davey came across a book titled Coffee Coffee and was reminded of a phrase she had once written in her notebook: “The coffee shop, the library.” Her piece by that name—created for this exhibition—is one in a series of gridded works featuring analog photographs that Davey has folded like envelopes, mailed to friends, then shown complete with stamps, postmarks, and return addresses, vestiges of travel that do not exist with e-mail. Juxtaposing her own photographs—taken at MoMA, at the public library, and in cafés—with iconic coffee shop images by Bruce Davidson and Saul Leiter, Davey “links two public spaces that offer privacy, comfort and sustenance for the body and the mind,” she says.
