diCorcia creates images at the intersection of documentary and theatrically staged photography, infusing seemingly insignificant gestures with psychology and emotion and forcing the viewer to decipher between fact and fiction. He lives and works in New York and teaches at Yale University.

In 2013, a major survey of the artist's work was organized by the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt. In 2014 the exhibition was shown at the Museum De Pont, Tilburg, Netherlands, followed by The Hepworth Wakefield, England. Other museum solo exhibitions include those presented at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2008) and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2007). His first solo museum exhibition was organized by MoMA, New York in 1993.

diCorcia has exhibited in group shows since 1985, including the traveling exhibition Pleasures and Terrors of Domestic Comfort, organized by MoMA, New York, in 1991; the Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1997; and Cruel and Tender at Tate Modern, London, in 2003. The following year his work was included in Fashioning Fiction in Photography Since 1990 at MoMA, New York.