Renell Medrano’s ‘Lambón’ Photo Show Marks a New Era for the Artist

On October 3, a crew of New York City’s coolest models, artists, and celebs—Alex Consani, Mona Tougaard, the rapper JT, and many more—gathered at WSA in lower Manhattan to celebrate a new exhibition by Renell Medrano. The 32-year-old, Bronx-born photographer held court on Thursday evening, taking photos with Quil Lemons and Tyler Mitchell in front of the works on view for “Lambón,” open from October 4 through November 2.

The show features editorial shoots with the likes of Kendrick Lamar and Solange Knowles alongside previously unseen personal works that Medrano shot while on trips to the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and Egypt. “This year has felt like the ending of a creative expression while simultaneously the beginning of a new one,” Medrano told W over e-mail a few days before “Lambón,” a Dominican slang term that translates roughly to “kiss-ass,” opened. “I was able to examine the last few years of work and how the creative landscape has and continues to change.”

Examining meant leafing through her own extensive archive of documentary-style photography—from pictures of Timothée Chalamet shot for GQ to Lamar in the very pages of this magazine. “There was a lot of introspection and consideration while going through my archives,” Medrano said. “I was thinking about where I was in my life at the time that I took the photographs. I had a moment like that with every picture, but one that stands out is the image of Adut Akech smiling with closed eyes and blue lipstick. This was an internal turning point for me, as I began to rethink what my creative output would be moving forward—it became a lot wider than what’s traditionally considered for an artist like myself.” See a handful of images featured in “Lambón,” which is commissioned by WeTransfer and Water Street Projects, below.

Renell Medrano, Untitled 9, 2022.