Lorna Simpson a Resource for Educators

Lorna Simpson A Resource for Educators

American Federation of Arts

Lorna Simpson A Resource for Educators

American Federation of Arts © 2006 American Federation of Arts Lorna Simpson, the exhibition this resource accompanies, is organized by the American Federation of Arts and made possible, in part, by grants from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Peter Norton Family Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Lily Auchin- American Federation of Arts closs Foundation, Inc., the Martin Bucksbaum Family Foundation, Emily 41 East 65th Street Fisher Landau, and The Barbara Lee Family Foundation Fund at the Boston New York, NY 10021-6594 Foundation. 212.988.7700 afaweb.org The AFA is a nonprofit institution that organizes art exhibitions for presentation in museums around the world, publishes exhibition catalogues, and Exhibition Itinerary to Date develops education programs. Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles April 16–July 10, 2006

Miami Art Museum October 13, 2006–January 21, 2007

Whitney Museum of American Art New York February 8–May 6, 2007

Kalamazoo Institute of Arts Kalamazoo, Michigan May 25–August 19, 2007

Gibbes Museum of Art Charleston, South Carolina September 7–December 2, 2007

Please direct questions about these materials to: Suzanne Elder Burke Director of Education American Federation of Arts 212.988.7700 ext. 26 [email protected]

Design/Production: Susan E. Kelly

Front Cover: Lorna Simpson, Call Waiting, 1997 (pp. 30–32)

Back Cover: Lorna Simpson, Waterbearer, 1986 (pp. 18–19) contents

About This Resource 4

Exhibition Overview 5

Artist Biography 6

Curriculum Connections 8

Discussion Questions and Activities 11

Selected Works of Art with Discussion Questions and Activities 15

Glossary 36

Bibliography 38

Web Resources 41 about this re source

Art can be a great source of inspiration for students. Contemporary art, in particular, shows students that artists often establish their own rules for artmaking, creating works that encourage people to see and understand the world around them in different ways. The aim of this resource is to facilitate the process of looking at and understanding Lorna Simpson’s work and to help teachers interpret the works in the exhibition. Teach- ers may utilize these materials either in conjunction with a class visit to the museum or independently. Suggested discussion questions focus on a selection of works from the exhibition and offer ways of making them more accessible to students. They are the first step toward engaging students, getting them to look at and analyze art. Students should be encouraged to make connections among various works of art; to establish links with topics and concepts they are studying in school; and to express their ideas about the works of art in this resource and about art in general. The discussion questions and classroom activities in this resource can be adapted for use with junior high school, high school, or university level students. Students should familiarize themselves with the words included in the glossary (p. 36). These words are bolded when they appear for the first time in the resource text.

This resource was prepared by Suzanne Elder Burke, Director of Education, AFA. The information on individual works of art is based on the essay by Okwui Enwezor in the exhibition catalogue Lorna Simpson (New York: AFA in association with Abrams, 2006). The exhibition overview is based on a text written by AFA Curator Yvette Y. Lee. The information on selected works of art, curriculum connections, activities, discussion questions, glossary, and bibliography were prepared by Ms. Elder Burke with the assistance of AFA Education Interns Sarah Birnbaum and Paolo Magagnoli. Corridor (Phone), 2003 Digital chromatic print mounted to Plexiglas Michaelyn Mitchell, AFA Director of Publications and Design, edited the 27 X 72 inches text and supervised design of the resource, with the assistance of Alec Courtesy the artist and Sean Kelly Gallery, New York Spangler. E xhibition overview

One of the leading artists of her generation, Lorna Simpson first became well known in the mid-1980s, confronting and challenging conventional views toward gender, identity, culture, history, and memory with large-scale photograph and text works that are formally elegant and subtly provocative. Her 1986 photograph-and-text piece Waterbearer employs a structure that would become a signature of much of her work—the pairing of a partially obscured figure with suggestive fragments of text, a juxtaposition that challenges the viewer’s expectations of narrative and identity. By the mid-90s, Simpson began to concentrate on creating large multi-panel photographs printed on felt. These softly sensual images depict urban locales as the site of public, yet unseen, couplings. More recently, the artist has turned to creating moving images. Since 1997, Simpson’s work has shown a renewed emphasis on the figure, with her film and video installations often focusing on the figure as a moving image.

For more than two decades, Lorna Simpson has raised thought-provoking questions about stereotypes and identity. Her attention to craft and picto- rial richness seduces the viewer while the innovative juxtaposition of figure and gesture with text and narrative extends the experience of her work beyond visual fulfillment into genuine self-reflection.

Simpson has participated in many solo and group exhibitions, but this mid- career survey curated by Helaine Posner, AFA Adjunct Curator, is the first opportunity for audiences to see the artist’s full range over a period of more than twenty years of production. Beginning with examples of her earli- est photograph-and-text works dating from 1985, the exhibition follows Simpson’s career to the present, featuring mural-scaled felt works from the mid-1990s, film and video installations from 1997 to 2004, and the artist’s most recent photographs. The exhibition is traveling to five ven- ues, opening on April 16, 2006, at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and subsequently traveling to the Miami Art Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, and the Gibbes Museum of Art. artist biogr aphy

Born in 1960, in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York, Lorna Simpson spent her teenage years in the neighboring borough of Queens. The only child of middle-class parents—her father was a social worker, her mother a secretary in a hospital—Simpson was encouraged to pursue her interest in the arts. She attended the High School of Art and Design and went on to earn a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, where the photography department focused mainly on documentary work.

By the end of Simpson’s undergraduate training in the early eighties, she had come to believe that documentary photography was not only limited but potentially exploitative. She continued to experiment with photography in San Diego, where she moved to complete her professional training at the University of California. There she worked with Eleanor Antin, Martha Rosler, and Carrie Mae Weems, feminist and conceptualist artists whose practice of combining images with text helped Simpson formulate the structure of her work. “It was there,” she explains, “that I was first exposed to underground films, their analytical structure, and the history of film, but I didn’t really have the desire to make films. Due to the technology at the time—the late 1970s and early ’80s—it would have been a behemoth project to take that on, financially as well as technically.”⁄ Instead, Simpson transferred the way experimental films use language and narrative to the realm of still photography, coupling images with text.

After earning her Master of Fine Arts in 1985, Simpson moved back to New York, where she continued creating works that combined images with ambiguous fragments of text. By 1995, she had moved away from this body of work toward a series of large photographic impressions of landscape and architecture on a grid of felt pieces accompanied by text panels with a more explicit narrative. This interest in narrative led to another evolution for Simpson, and in 1997, she began working in film. Throughout Simpson’s career and her experimentation with media, her work has eluded direct interpretation. Sylvia Wolf, photography curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art, has observed that “in all of her work—films, video installations, and photographs—Lorna never tells the whole story, or she tells an open-ended story and forces us to complete it in a way that draws attention to our own belief systems.”¤

Simpson has received numerous honors, grants, and awards. She was the first African American woman to have a solo exhibition in the “Projects” series at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (1990) and to represent the United States at the prestigious Venice Biennale (1993). Since then she

has been included in a number of significant national and international art shows—from the Whitney Biennial (1991, 1993, 1995, 2002) to Documenta at Kassel, Germany (1987 and 2002). She has also had one-person exhibitions—of her felt works at the Miami Art Museum (1997) and of her film installations at the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus (1997) and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (1999). In 1998 Simpson was nominated for the Hugo Boss Prize by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, and in 2001, she won the Whitney Museum American Art Award.

1. Lorna Simpson, quoted in Barbara Pollack, “Turning Down the Stereotypes,” ARTNews (Septem- ber 2002): 137.

2. Lorna Simpson, quoted in Barbara Pollack, “Turning Down the Stereotypes,” ARTNews (Septem- ber 2002): 139.

Proof Reading, 1989 4 Polaroid prints, 4 engraved plastic plaques 40 X 40 inches overall Collection Steven Johnson and Walter Sudol, New York curriculum connections

Below are themes that educators may use to approach the works of art included in this resource.

• Language • Memory • Identity • Race and Racism • Femininity/Masculinity

Educators may also reference artists whose work relates to Simpson’s, as well as the various artists, writers, and filmmakers who Simpson has said have influenced her.

contemporary ARTISTS who explore similar themes

Glenn Ligon (b. 1960) combines family photographs, magazine images, sound recordings, and text in works that explore sexuality, identity, and representation.

Isaac Julien (b. 1960) is a filmmaker and installation artist whose work addresses representations of race and masculinity.

Laylah Ali (b. 1968) often depicts violent subject matter in a playful, comic-book style. Her small figurative gouache paintings speak to themes of power and resistance.

Shahzia Sikander (b. 1969) works in the traditional style of Persian min- iature painting to address themes of personal identity, displacement, and stereotypes.

INFLUENCES

Artists Eleanor Antin (b. 1935), Simpson’s teacher at the University of California, is one of the first conceptual artists to combine photography, video, performance, and text.

John Baldessari (b. 1931) is a conceptual artist who utilizes photomontage, juxtaposing text and images.

Anthony Barboza (b. 1944) is a photographer whose thirty-seven-year career spans documentary, conceptual, fashion, and commercial photography. His experimentation in the medium in the early ’80s encouraged Simpson to question the conventional uses of photography.

Roy DeCarava (b. 1919), a Harlem photographer who came of age in the 1940s, rejected the clichés of strife and poverty in which black subjects were typically portrayed, instead taking photographs that are positive representations of black community.

Allan Kaprow (b. 1927) is a founder of the performance art or “happenings” movement and was one of Simpson’s teachers at the University of California, San Diego.

Martha Rosler (b. 1943) works in video, photo-text, installation, and performance. Her subjects include everyday life (often with an eye to women’s experience) the media, and the built environment.

Carrie Mae Weems (b. 1953), a former classmate of Simpson’s at the Uni- versity of California, San Diego, works with photographs, sound, and text to investigate issues that impact African American culture. Weems organized a meeting of black photographers in the Just Above Midtown gallery that helped Simpson clarify her ideas about documentary photography.

Filmmakers Art critic Chrissie Iles includes the following among Simpson’s cinematic influences.‹ John Cassavetes (1929–1989) financed his first film himself and went on to become the father of independent film. His classic film Shadows (1958– 59) depicts the racial tension that transpires when a white male character discovers that his light-skinned girlfriend is black.

Jean-Luc Godard (b. 1930), one of the key figures of the FrenchNew Wave, is famous for using a fragmented narrative and cinematic language that challenges the conventions of Hollywood cinema. Among his best-known films is Two or Three Things I Know About Her (1967).

Chantal Akerman (b. 1950) is best known for her filmJeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975), which employs an unconven- tional narrative style and subject (the life of a housewife and prostitute).

Babette Mangolte (b. 1941), one of Simpson’s teachers, came of age in the mid-70s with What Maisie Knew (1975), a film in which the story of five characters is told from a female, rather than the more typical male, point of view. 10

She, 1992 4 Polaroid prints, 1 engraved plastic plaque 29 X 85G inches overall Collection Jack and Sandra Guthman, Chicago

Writers David Antin (b. 1932) is known for his “talk poems” (tape-recorded poems transcribed without punctuation) and his juxtaposition of lecture, stand-up comedy, story-telling, and poetry.

James Baldwin (1924–1987) is best known for Go Tell It on the Mountain (1955), long considered an American classic. The book describes Baldwin’s experience growing up in Harlem and the struggles of black Americans.

Ntozake Shange (b. 1948) is a playwright, poet, and novelist whose work is noted for its exploration of racial/sexual anger and feminist themes. She is best known for her play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow Is Enuf (1975).

Alice Walker (b. 1944), an activist in the Civil Rights movement of the ’60s, received a Pulitzer Prize for The Color Purple (1983).

Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960), an anthropologist, as well as a novelist and poet, is best known for her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), a controversial work at the time of its publication because its protagonist, Janie, was a strong-willed black woman.

3. Chrissie Iles, “Images Between Images: Lorna Simpson’s Post Narrative Cinema,” in Lorna Simp- son, ed. Thelma Golden (London: Phaidon Press, 2002). discussion que stions and activitie s 11

Discussion Questions

1. How would you describe the visual qualities of Simpson’s work? Make a list of adjectives that pertain to the way her work looks as a whole and share the list with the rest of the group.

2. Many of Simpson’s black-and-white photographs are staged so as to minimize the detail and create starker contrasts and sharper lines. Why do you think Simpson does this? Why do you think she creates mostly black-and-white images? What is the effect of this style on the viewer?

3. Most of the pieces in this exhibition are bigger than photographs are typically produced. Do you think the large format has an impact on the viewer? If so, in what way? Do you think the messages in Simpson’s work would come across differently if the works had been created as miniatures? Explain.

4. Simpson once said, “For me, the specter of race looms so large because this is a culture where using the black figure takes on very particular meanings, even stereotypes. But, if I were a white artist using Cauca- sian models, then the work would be read as completely universalist. It would be construed quite differently.”› Because Simpson typically uses black models, her works tend to be seen as statements about African American identity. Discuss this observation as a group.

If you wanted to create a photograph that communicated a universal statement on identity, how would you aim to achieve it? Describe the style, setting, and subject you would depict in your image.

5. Issues of feminine identity are prominent in Simpson’s work. What are some assumptions, expectations, and stereotypes related to a woman’s appearance that are prominent in our society? How do you see these stereotypes reflected in the media and in advertising? How do you see them reflected in your own behavior or the behavior of those around you?

6. In regard to her work, Simpson has commented:

I have always constructed things within the form of a grid—maybe starting out with whole images but quickly serializing them and segmenting them into quadrants to make up one entire image. So there’s something about the grid and about fragmentation that I’ve always liked as a for- mal device . . . I have a tendency to do the same thing to the subject. 12

The subject is always segmented or taken apart and reassembled in a particular way where you see the cracks and the seams where things are put together or re-constructed . . . The way I operate is in this very fragmented way, not as a “whole” subject. I don’t interpret the world or the things around me within one ideological scope.ﬁ

Which pieces in this resource guide (or in the entire exhibition) are formatted in a grid pattern? In the above quote by Simpson, she comments on fragmentation of the image as well as of the subject of the work. How can a subject be fragmented or segmented? Is there a piece in this exhibition that you feel illustrates this idea?

ACTIVITIES

The Significance of Placement Aim: To understand cropping and composition in photography. Materials: Paper, pencil or pen, scissors, thumb tacks, camera. Procedure: 1. Compare the placement and cropping of the figure in the following Simpson photographs: Call Waiting, Waterbearer, Gestures/Reenact- ments, and 1978–1988. Discussion should address what is included in the image and what is excluded, as well as where the figure is placed in the picture. 2. Choose a subject—an object, person, place, etc.—to photograph. 3. Think about the characteristics of this subject and make a list of adjectives describing it. 4. Take a series of photographs that capture the subject and convey the adjectives you included in your list. As you take these photographs, experiment with different ways to present or capture your subject, such as focusing the lens to make the subject appear larger and smaller (closer or further away), cropping parts of the subject out of the image, and, if possible, changing the lighting. 5. Hang the photographs in a row, adding the adjectives you sought to express below the corresponding photograph. Share with the class and discuss.

Using Film to Examine Identity Aim: To employ some of the technical and organizational skills involved in filmmaking and develop critical thinking skills. Materials: Digital camera, sound, editing equipment (if your school does not have digital media equipment, students may have their own cameras or look online for companies willing to donate equipment to schools). 13

Procedure: 1. As a group, talk about identity, especially in relation to the age of the students in the class. Make a list of issues that come up in the conversation. 2. Have a discussion to brainstorm about stories/scenarios that touch upon these issues, taking notes on the board. Get the class to agree on one storyline or a series of very short vignettes, depending on how much time you have available. (If time is limited, simplify by filming in a documentary style, conducting a series of interviews discussing identity.) 3. Ask students to divide themselves into the following production crews to create the film: • Writers/Directors (work with the actors, develop the dialogue, and organize a shooting schedule) • Art Direction (develop the look and feel of the film, finding and pre- paring locations, costumes, and props) • Camera, Sound, and Lighting (operate and care for the equipment) Audio tip: Every camera comes with a built-in microphone, but you can also create your own boom microphone by taping a hand-held microphone to a long pole. • Editors (assemble the final film, including transitions between scenes, sound, and the final look) Editing tip: Editing requires special software and a computer with enough storage space to house your film as you edit. Apple’s iMovie is one of the easiest programs. • Actors (rehearse the scenes and learn the script, as well as the block- ing for the scene, i.e., where the actors need to stand or move) 4. Try to create an opportunity for the whole school to view the finished film.

Resources for educators who want more information: iLife (www.apple.com/education/ilife/) An Apple site that offers classroom filmmakers iMovie (a film editing program) editing instruction and ideas for integrating digital media into the classroom.

The Importance of Editing (www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/moviemaker/ learnmore/editing.asp) Provides moviemaking tips and software for Windows platform.

4. Lorna Simpson, quoted in Barbara Pollack, “Turning Down the Stereotypes,” ARTNews (Septem- ber 2002): 139.

5. Lorna Simpson, in “Conversation with the Artist,” Lorna Simpson (New York: American Federation of Arts in association with Abrams, 2006), p. 139

Selected Works of Art with Discussion Questions and Activities 16

Discussion Questions 1. Gestures/Reenactments, 1985

1. Why do you think Simpson chose to 6 gelatin silver prints, 7 texts mounted on foam core crop the head of her subject (or most of it) from these images? Photographs 48G X 39G inches each, 252 inches overall Collection Raymond Learsy and Melva Bucksbaum, Connecticut 2. Look at each image and describe the body language depicted by the subject. What do you think each pose The settings of Simpson’s photographs—which in the beginning alternate communicates? between a stark white background or somber black and later include a 3. Do you think there is a sequence to the brownish red background, after she started working in color with the images? Is there any significance to the order? large-format Polaroid camera—appear like backdrops for technical or scientific photography. She gives the images a neutral, almost institutional 4. In this piece, there are six photographs and seven text panels. Why do you think appearance by isolating the figures from any point of reference. With these Simpson chose to include an extra panel 1980s works that pair text and images, Simpson depicted powerful ges- of text? tures of resistance. Activity: Deconstructing Lorna Simpson’s Gestures/ The first mature image that emerged from this new body of work, Ges- Reenactments tures/Reenactments encapsulates the first stage of this period of intense Aim: To strengthen critical thinking skills experimentation. Simpson’s use of the black male figure in this series of through the interpretation of text. gelatin silver prints is surprising because subsequently Simpson would Procedure: work mostly with black female subjects. The series of monologues that 1. Divide students into groups, with one group for each of the seven sets of text runs beneath the six panels explores various anxieties that plague the that appear under the images in this work. black male subject in American culture. In the first panel the monologue is Assign each group one text to focus on. as follows: 2. Ask each group to discuss the possible meanings and connections within So who’s your hero— their text panel, and then make an outline me & my runnin buddy of them. how his runnin buddy was standing 3. Have each group present their ideas to when they thought he had a gun the class and then discuss as a group. how Larry was standing when he found 4. Create a chart on the blackboard out that has a column for each of the seven text panels. Record notes from each presentation in the appropriate column. There is a melancholic quality to these lines that suggests that this is 5. Looking at the completed chart, a scene of tragedy and loss. By leaving the lines incomplete, Simpson discuss any consistent themes that appears to be calling on viewers to complete the picture, to draw some emerge from each group. What do you think is communicated by the texts as a conclusions about the fate of the “runnin buddy.” Standing off the frame, group? the anonymous male figure dressed in white shorts and T-shirt appears “as if he had been roused from bed. The mark of resignation in his slightly slackened frame is drawn out by the manner in which he stands, with his hands placed on his hips, scratching his thigh, or with hands folded facing the viewer. The gesture and pose indicate how people often stand when absorbing disturbing news.”ﬂ 17

Because the black male is often portrayed as either uncontrollable or too constrained, the figure in Gestures/Reenactments is a symbol of his social condition. The text panels that accompany the work present an essay on that condition. Simpson forces us not just to read the panels but to analyze their meaning.

6. Okwui Enwezor, “Repetition and Differentiation—Lorna Simpson’s Iconography of the Racial Sub- lime,” in Lorna Simpson (New York: American Federation of Arts in association with Abrams, 2006), p. 110. 18

Discussion Questions 2. waterbearer, 1986

1. Describe the positioning of the figure. Gelatin silver print, vinyl lettering Is there anything unusual about this composition? 45 × 77 inches (framed), 55 × 77 inches overall Collection Sean and Mary Kelly, New York 2. Why do you think Simpson chose to depict her subject from behind?

3. Are there any clues to suggest the In Waterbearer, Simpson pairs an image of a partially obscured figure with subject’s social status? suggestive fragments of text, challenging the viewer’s expectations of nar-

4. What is the relationship between rative and identity. This structure would become a signature of much of the image and the text? How might the Simpson’s work. In the photograph, a black woman dressed in a white, image be interpreted if the text were not loose-fitting dress stands with her back turned to the viewer and with included? raised arms holds a silver pitcher in one hand and a plastic jug in the 5. Why is the woman pouring water? What do you think the water signifies? other. The text reads, “She saw him disappear by the river, they asked her to tell what happened, only to discount her memory.” Hiding the woman’s 6. The Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675) depicted scenes of everyday identity, Simpson uses gesture and text to create an open-ended narrative. life in the city of Delft in the Netherlands, While the posture of the figure calls to mind the scales of justice, the text including paintings of ordinary women holding pitchers. Do you think the figure suggests that although this woman was asked for a statement, presum- in Waterbearer is referencing Vermeer’s ably by some authority, her account of the mysterious event was ignored. paintings? Why? If so, what do you think The ambiguity of the image leaves room for numerous interpretations. is the meaning behind the reference? The disparate pair of vessels may symbolize, for example, the two ends of Activity: Imagining the the economic spectrum or, more directly, containers used to draw water Possibilities from the river referred to in the text. As the historian bell hooks points Aim: To use creative writing to respond to out, “Simpson’s portrait is reminiscent of Vermeer’s paintings of working Lorna Simpson’s Waterbearer. women—maids standing silently by basins of water in still poses that carry Procedure: no hint of emotional threat. Yet Simpson’s language brings a threat to the 1. Look at the photographic portion of Waterbearer. What does the positioning fore.”‡ The woman’s knowledge threatens and therefore she is refused a of the figure make you think of? Do the voice. Yet this refusal is countered by the intensity of the image and by the pitchers symbolize anything to you? woman’s defiant stance. 2. Read the text that accompanies the photograph. What do you think happened 7. bell hooks, “Lorna Simpson: Waterbearer,” Art Forum (September 1993): 137. by the river?

3. Using Simpson’s text as a starting point, write a story about the man and woman mentioned in the text.

4. Ask students to share their stories with the class. 19 20

Discussion Questions 3. twenty Questions (A Sampler), 1986

1. What do you think of when you first 4 gelatin silver prints, 6 engraved plastic plaques look at this piece? Describe the first thing that comes to mind. Photographs 25½ inches each (framed diameter), 106¾ inches overall Courtesy the artist and Sean Kelly Gallery, New York 2. Why do you think Simpson chose to repeat the same image rather than use different ones? Here Simpson uses the traditional circular format of nineteenth-century 3. Why do you think Simpson chose portraiture to present her subject. Four identical images of the subject are these questions? What do you think each repeated, her features hidden by her lush pomaded hair (hair plays a cru- of the five questions means? Does the addition of text change your reading of the cial role in the work) that also conceals her neck, revealing only her bare images? shoulders and upper back, which is covered by a simple dress. With the 4. Why do you think Simpson chose subject’s back positioned toward the viewer, the face and gaze are hidden. to title this piece Twenty Questions Five questions placed beneath the photographs, each related to defining (A Sampler)? Does the title provide any clues on the meaning? How does the title who this subject is, invite us to make judgments about her. The questions relate to the five questions posed to the are: “Is she as pretty as a picture,” “Or clear as crystal,” “Or pure as a lily,” viewer? “Or black as coal,” and “Or sharp as a razor.” Activity: Visual Codes The repetition of the image is reminiscent of a police lineup and its nine- Aim: To examine the ways in which we understand a photograph or image. teenth-century forerunner, the mug shot, a system for creating photo-

Procedure: graphic records of criminals that was created by Alphonse Bertillon. Prior 1. Look through a newspaper or to the practice of fingerprinting, Bertillon also devised a meticulous method magazine and find a photograph of a of measuring body parts as a means of recording and identifying criminals. person or place. As we know, the line-up can be an agent of both identification and mis- 2. Cut out the picture, excluding any captions or text. identification. Simpson has used and tweaked it, with the self-repeating image calling on the viewer to decide which question defines the subject. 3. What information can you infer about the subject of the photograph? For example, can you gauge his or her The “twenty questions” that is part of the title adds a playful twist to the emotional state? Socioeconomic status? reading of the work. Twenty Questions is a spoken game in which one per- Profession? Location of residence? What things lead you to believe these son chooses an object that will be the answer; the other participants can things about the person pictured (facial ask twenty questions, receiving a “yes” or “no” answer for hints as they try expression, gestures, camera angle, clothing, lighting)? to guess the object. The term “sampler” is often used in reference to a piece of cloth embroidered with a sampling of needlepoint designs. The earli- 4. Make a list of words that describe what you infer about this subject. Share est known examples were created in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries with the class and explain your thoughts. before printed pattern books were available, and they served as both an example of a woman’s skill at needlework and a means for recording pat- terns and motifs for future use. The stitching of samplers was believed to be a sign of virtue, achievement, and industry in women. Samplers are still stitched today, usually using kits purchased from needlework shops. 21 22

Discussion Questions 4. 1978–88, 1990

1. What do you think the hair in this piece 4 gelatin silver prints, 13 engraved plastic plaques symbolizes? Photographs 49 X 17 inches each (framed), 49 X 70 inches overall 2. If Simpson is using hair as a stand-in Collection Gregory R. Miller, New York for a person, what does the hair depicted in 1978–1988 suggest about the person it represents (in regard to gender, race, For the past decade, Simpson has explored the role of hair as a marker of class)? social identity and, more specifically, the role of hair in African American 3. What is the significance of the hair culture: a complex and continuing saga in which hair can be seen as a (or braids) being shown unattached to a person? medium for creativity, political emblem, marker of self-ownership, source of pride, and on occasion, even now, of shame. 1978–1988 refers specifi- 4. Why do you think Simpson chose to frame the four image panels? cally to the identity of African Americans and how they conform to, or rebel

5. Simpson could have attached against, prevailing white standards of beauty by braiding, dying, weaving, actual braids to the panels instead of and processing their hair. The piece is made up of four vertical framed photographing them. Why do you think panels that feature close-up photographs of nearly identical braids evenly she chose to use photographs instead of the real thing? spaced on a black background. The columns of braids are punctuated with

6. If you were to choose one thing to thirteen small panels, each containing hair-related words such as “weave,” represent yourself (as Simpson chose “tangle,” and “knot,” suggestive of a journal that records different aspects hair to represent people), what would you of a woman’s relationship to her hair or chronologically charts the changes choose? in hairstyle preferences. By representing hair that is unattached to a body, Activity: Creating a Simpson exposes hair as an alterable or removable embellishment that Self-Portrait may distort our understanding of what is natural or desirable in the human Aim: To explore symbols of identity. body. Hair becomes a means of transformation. Procedure: 1. Think about the things in your life that are very personal and/or important to you.

2. Choose things around you that you feel help to define who you are.

3. Take photographs of each of these things.

4. Arrange them in a collage that symbolically creates a self-portrait.

Stereo Styles, 1988 10 Polaroid prints, 10 engraved plastic plaques Photographs 35 X 31 inches each, plaques 3 X 6 inches each, 66 X 116 inches overall Collection Raymond Learsy and Melva Bucksbaum, Connecticut 23 24

Discussion Questions 5. coiffure, 1991

1. What is depicted in each of the three 3 gelatin silver prints, 10 engraved plastic plaques images? What kind of mask is pictured? What do you think the mask symbolizes? Photographs 47 X 39 inches each, 72 X 106 inches overall Why do you think Simpson chose to show Collection Michael Krichman and Carmen Cuenca, San Diego the woman and the mask from the back?

2. In this piece, Simpson builds meaning In Coiffure, Simpson juxtaposes three black-and-white images: a woman through the juxtaposition of images. with a closely cropped hairstyle seen from the back, a coil of braided hair, Although she does not communicate a specific narrative, the images combine to and an African mask, also seen from the back. In the early 1990s, Simpson create meaning that may be interpreted began to incorporate images of hair and occasionally ritual objects into her differently by each viewer. What do you think is the connection between the work. This piece seems even more ambiguous than her images of lone fig- anonymous female figure, the coil of ures in plain white dresses because the meaning of the coils of hair paired hair, and the African mask? How do you with African masks is unclear. The accompanying detailed instructions for interpret Simpson’s Coiffure? a personal ritual of hairdressing suggest issues related to cultural practice. 3. There are detailed instructions for With the objects closely cropped, centered, and isolated against a shallow, braiding hair under the center image. What does this add to the work? Why do black background, they are presented with a nearly clinical detachment, you think Simpson included this text? void of emotional or cultural significance, like scientific specimens. 4. Why do you think the text was placed only under the image of the braided hair? The representation of hair, specifically braided hair, is a recurring theme in 5. As a child, Simpson recalls having her Simpson’s work. Images of braided and coiled hair highlight associations hair braided, then cut. Do you have any memories of having your hair cut or styled between hair and culture, ethnicity, gender, and may even serve as a rep- when you were a child? Write a short resentation for the whole body. “Perhaps as an extension of her reflection description of the “ritual” as it occurred in upon the functional links between hair, cultural practice, physical trans- your family. formation and ethnicity, she turned next to an equally loaded object—the Activity: Using Images to Build traditional African mask.”° The mask serves as an object through which Visual Narratives public and private ritual, as well as the discontinuities and contradictions Aim: To express meaning by grouping of ethnic identity, can be explored. In traditional African societies, the mask images relating to a specific social topic functions as a vehicle for ritual transformation within communal religious into a collage. beliefs and cultural practices, much like hair and wigs serve as transforma- Procedure: 1. Ask students to choose a social topic tion devices in contemporary society. As an icon of ethnicity the African such as gender, economic status, race, mask has become a symbol of the racial and cultural differences that sepa- body image, or identity. rate African from Western society. In this piece, Simpson is not concerned 2. Have them choose magazine images with solely commenting on black representation but also with combining that they feel represent issues related to symbols and language in new and provocative ways. their topic. Encourage them to think about narrative relationships as they select their 8. Beryl Wright, “Back Talk: Recoding the Body,” Callaloo 19, no. 2 (1996): 397–413. images.

3. Ask students to arrange the images into a collage and glue them to a large sheet of paper, poster board, or Masonite.

4. Have students share their collages with the rest of the class and have their classmates try to guess what subject was being represented. 25 26

Discussion Questions 6. bio, 1992

1. Describe the objects depicted in the 18 Internal dye diffusion transfer process prints, 9 engraved photographs. Plexiglas plaques 2. What do the shoes and clothes tell us 98 X 162 inches overall about the person in the photograph? Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; gift of Maremont 3. Do you think the repetition of the images makes the piece more effective Corporation by exchange, purchased through funds provided than if each image appeared only once? by AT&T New Art/New Vision

4. Most of Simpson’s works have a black or white background for the subject. Why In this work, Simpson again uses repetition to emphasize her subject mat- do you think the artist chose red as the ter. The series of six nearly identical images arranged in three horizontal background for this piece? Do you think red has any symbolic meaning? rows are framed at the bottom edge by three words—“biopsy,” “biogra-

5. The black box in the top section has phy,” “biology”—giving us both the title and clues to the meaning of the many possible meanings. What do you piece. Art historian Kellie Jones has said, “Using these three words that think it symbolizes? Why? begin with life (bio from the Greek bios, meaning mode of life), Simpson 6. The shoes depicted in the bottom third elegantly describes key constructs that impact on and regulate individuals of the installation appear in pairs except in the first image, which is a single shoe. and bodies, from the clinical control and dismemberment implicit in biopsy, What do you think this symbolizes? the performance of race that signals biography, and the gestures of living

7. In the middle third of the installation, gender that surround biology. The figures that Simpson depicts balance on there are six images of nearly identical these sites of identity-formation and power.”· torsos. Three of the figures have their arms crossed and three are pictured with their hands in their pockets. Compare the In the top section, accompanying six photographs of identical black boxes, body language of each pose. are text fragments in which the discourses of medicine, race, and iden- 8. “Bio” is from the Greek word bios, tity converge: “choose general and you might lose a shelf of memory” and meaning mode of life. The words “biopsy,” choose local and you’ll remember too much” relate the act of choosing “biography,” and “biology” appear at the bottom of the piece. Discuss Simpson’s anesthesia to selective memory. The texts “bled to death inside hospital use of these words and her choice of title. last year” and “bled to death outside hospital 60 years ago” recall the seg- 9. Compare the figure in Waterbearer regation of medical facilities. In the last two texts, “tendency to keloid,” to the figure in Bio. How are the figures which may refer to African American bodies, is coupled with “tendency to similar? Different? What are some adjectives you would use to describe be prescribed antidepressants.” The external scarring of a keloid (a fibrous each? scar tissue) is equated with the internal scarring of depression.

Activity: Interpreting Text The focal points are once again the backs of bodies in the middle row of Aim: To develop critical thinking skills through the interpretation of text. images, but this time, the torsos are draped with crisp, broad-shouldered gray suits rather than Simpson’s familiar white dresses. Arrayed above the Procedure: 1. Discuss with your class the possible bottom row of text are six Polaroids of black oxford shoes. A pair graces meanings of the text segments from Bio, each photograph except on the far left, where a single shoe floats above shown on the facing page. the word “biopsy.” The three types of images taken together seem to stand 2. Each set of texts presents contrasting in for the entire body. The black box atop each torso is the head, the com- themes such as internal/external, inside/ outside, personal/societal. Have each mand center and container of memory, much like its counterpart on an student write a list of the themes for each airplane. Its color suggests a coffin, though its size seems ideally suited to set and compare with the rest of your the footwear below. class.

9. Kellie Jones, Thelma Golden, and Chrissie Iles, Lorna Simpson (London and New York: Phaidon, 2002) p. 49. 27

Text Panels choose general and you might lose a shelf of memory choose local and you’ll remember too much bled to death inside a hospital last year bled to death outside hospital 60 years ago tendency to keloid tendency to be prescribed anti depressants 28

Discussion Questions 7. the Clock Tower, 1995

1. Describe what you see in this image. Serigraph on 12 felt panels with 1 text panel 2. Without looking at the time on the 100H X 90 inches overall clock tower, what time of day do you think Collection Mr. and Mrs. Michael Ringier, Zurich this image was taken? Why?

3. What do you think the clock symbolizes? The Clock Tower is one of a series of works that Simpson created by print- ing an image from her own archive of photographs taken during her travels 4. Can you see what time the clock on the right says? The clock on the left? Why abroad or around New York City on to a grid of felt panels, setting them do you think the two clocks show slightly up as scenes of public encounters and enlivening them with snippets of different times? dialogue. In this series, Simpson’s growing interest in narrative anticipates 5. How does Simpson’s use of felt her next move into film. This piece shows a hulking view of a tower pho- (instead of paper, for instance) affect the meaning of the piece? tographed from a distance and placed in the center of the image. The two clocks embedded on the south and east faces of the tower are slightly mis- 6. This image is printed on a grid of felt panels. Why do you think Simpson chose aligned (one face reads 8:21 and the other 8:24). to use a grid format? Do you think the grid symbolizes anything? The text that accompanies The Clock Tower follows the trajectory of an over- Activity: Using Value to heard conversation, bringing together the audio and visual, the eavesdrop- Portray Distance per and the voyeur simultaneously. Foretelling the dialogue that emerges Aim: To create a cityscape applying the in Simpson’s first film,Call Waiting, the conversation is between a man and principles of value to achieve the illusion woman who work in the same office. In the present conversation, however, of depth. the two lovers are discussing the details of their after-work assignation in Procedure: the tower where the clocks are. A close reading of the text and descriptive The Clock Tower contains a beautiful range of values in black and white that elements of the unfolding drama reveals Simpson’s insightful observations helps to create the illusion of depth. of peoples’ mundane lives and desires, as well as their constant pursuit of Typically, the objects furthest away appear to be the lightest. (In this image, however, dangerous thrills and petty gratifications. one building in the background is black.)

1. Discuss the principles of value, showing the location in The Clock Tower of the darkest area of the image, the middle tone, and the lightest area.

2. Have students find images of a landscape in magazines, or if cameras are available, ask them to take their own landscape photos.

3. Ask students to photocopy their images and then, using tracing paper, trace the main contours of the image.

4. Have students divide the image into a foreground, background, and middle ground and create the illusion of depth through the use of three varying values of black acrylic paint or watercolors. (Use the darkest value for the foreground, a The Rock, 1995 middle value for the middle ground, and Serigraph on 12 felt panels with 2 felt text panels the lightest value for the background.) 100H × 89H inches overall Courtesy the artist and Sean Kelly Gallery, New York 29 30

Discussion Questions 8. call Waiting, 1997

1. Why do you think Simpson chose to Video installation, 16mm black-and-white film work in film, rather than still photography alone, to create this piece? Transferred to DVD 13 minutes, 11 seconds, sound 2. Why do you think she shot the film in black and white? Would the effect be Commissioned for inSite ’97 different if it were in color? Courtesy the artist and Sean Kelley Gallery, New York 3. If it is possible to visit the exhibition, - and - have the students watch the film. Ask 12 framed silver gelatin prints with silk-screened texts them what they think it is about. Does Simpson create a coherent narrative 22H × 18H inches each (framed) through the film? How is the narrative Courtesy the artist and Sean Kelly Gallery, New York different from the format of a typical movie? There is something about working in film and video that caused me Activity: Creative Writing to shift the way that I work with regard to process. Film provides a multilayered process . . . as opposed to the solitary act of making pho- Aim: To exercise creative thinking through tographs. For me, film provides an option for a much more spontaneous the act of writing fiction. way of working.⁄‚ —Lorna Simpson Procedure: 1. Have students look at the prints from Call Waiting, a single-channel work filmed in black and white—as well as Call Waiting. Ask them what they think is happening. What may have happened a series of photographic stills from the film—mimics the murky atmosphere before and after these images were taken? and plot twists of film noir. Simpson’s film allows the viewer to eavesdrop 2. Ask them to write a short narrative on various people talking on the telephone in Spanish, Japanese, and Eng- describing what they think is happening in lish (with subtitles) about relationships. The intimate tone of these inter- this series of images. woven conversations is repeatedly disrupted by call-waiting signals, which 3. Have students share their narrative with the rest of the class and discuss after deny the viewer a linear narrative and often result in humorous exchanges. each one. The constantly interrupted narrative is transformed into a series of open-

See also Activity: Using Film to Examine ended stories. The telephone, a medium of communication, here becomes a Identity (p. 12). cause of miscommunication.

In Call Waiting, Simpson creates a series of vignettes that show various characters in deceitful roles, with lovers conversing on the phone, double-crossing and being double-crossed. Call Waiting is as much about the search for pleasure and the frustration of desire as it is the struggle for power between women and men. Simpson positions the woman at the center of this conversation, making her both the protagonist and antago- nist in a display of angst between various couples. According to art critic Horace Brockington, “Simpson is concerned with how the viewer’s own preconceptions shape individual meaning for imagery and text. Through the introduction of moving figures and sound, the figures in her recent work seem less guarded, revealing more of their inner states. One suspects that Simpson is still leaving all interpretation to choice, as she has so often 31 32

done in her work. By making the figures silent and supplying a disjunctive narrative text, Lorna Simpson continues to force the viewer to put together image, action and text.”⁄⁄

The soft-focus, inky surfaces, and moody dramatic lighting of the film stills convey a sense of film noir. However, the noir genre does not, as some have argued, carry over to Simpson’s films. Rather than cinema, the structure of films like Call Waiting and Interior/Exterior, Full/Empty is drawn from television, from the classic format of daytime soap operas.

10. Lorna Simpson, in “Conversation with the Artist,” Lorna Simpson (New York: American Federa- tion of Arts in association with Abrams, 2006), p. 134.

11. Horace Brockington, “Logical Anonymity,” The International Review of African American Art 15, no. 3 (1999): 20–29.

From Interior/Exterior, Full/Empty, 1997 1 of 18 framed gelatin silver prints with silk-screened texts 22H X 18H inches each (framed) Courtesy the artist and Sean Kelly Gallery, New York 34

Discussion Questions 9. untitled (guess who’s coming to dinner), 2001

1. What is your immediate reaction to Gelatin silver prints under semi-transparent Plexiglas this piece? What did you notice first? Describe what you see. What do you with vinyl lettering notice upon further contemplation? 61 X 41 inches

2. In this piece, Simpson repeats the Courtesy the artist and Sean Kelley Gallery, New York same image of a black woman facing two different directions. Why do you think she Untitled (guess who’s coming to dinner) addresses the taboo interracial used repetition in this way? Do you think it symbolizes anything? relationship portrayed in the movie Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967),

3. The arrangement of the photographs a romance of race and progressive politics in which Sidney Poitier plays in repetitive rows imitates a cinematic the sensitive, urbane black love interest of a white woman. The Poitier storyboard. Is there anything else about character overcomes his blackness through his non-threatening demeanor this piece that reminds you of the cinema? Explain. (he plays a renowned United Nations doctor), thereby becoming worthy of

4. If possible, have students watch the his beloved. What is ultimately redeemed in the film, however, is neither movie Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. Poitier’s black character nor blackness, but rather whiteness. How do you think the Simpson piece relates to the film? With all the other films or paintings listed in this piece, why do The title of this work serves as a subtext for its reading. Interspersed in you think Simpson chose to name it after the frame of the piece are vertical bands of near-identical profile shots of a this film? young black woman. Arranged facing in and out of the frame, some of the Activity: Text and Image images fill the oval frame or cut off part of the face. A long vertical list of

Aim: To explore the different ways that text titles drawn from films and paintings runs down the bottom left and right and image can interact. sides of the photographic panel. Made anywhere between the 1790s and

Procedure: the 1970s, the titles Simpson cites are by or about black people and were 1. Choose a photograph from any source, selected for their loaded references. photocopy it or cut it out, and paste it on a piece of paper. This piece is part of a group of works Simpson created in 2001 in which she 2. Select or write a text (a poem, a line of dialogue, an excerpt from a story, a returns to still photography and pictures of black women; however, it is not saying) that, when juxtaposed with the a repeat of earlier imagery. Created a decade after her signature imagery of photograph, changes the meaning of the ambiguous female figures with their backs toward the viewer, these pieces photograph or comments on the meaning in some way. place even more emphasis on process, play, and intuitive markings, and the

3. On the back of your piece, explain why subjects are different as well. They are not full bodies but rather are seen you chose the text you did and what you in headshots or cameos, and they are not wrapped in simple white dresses want to convey by your choices. but rather are stylishly dressed in black. In Untitled (guess who’s coming 4. Ask students to present their projects to dinner), each “guest” is contained in an oval setting reminiscent of deli- to the rest of the class. cate eighteenth-century cameos. The arrangement of the photographs in repetitive rows mimics a cinematic storyboard, linking this body of work to Simpson’s recent experiments with film-based projects. 35 36 glossary

conceptual art The name given to a type of art in which the idea or concept expressed by the artist is primary and the physical properties of the work secondary. Mostly a phenomenon of the 1960s, the term “conceptual art” embraces a wide variety of styles, forms, and ideas, including happenings and performance art.

documentary photography Candid photographs that provide a record of social and political situations with the aim of conveying information. Early documentary photographs were used to relay information about important events and the scenery and people of distant or unexplored lands. They were also used to record the successive stages of significant or complex construction and development projects. In the first half of the nineteenth century, they were mainly used to chronicle poverty and the hardships faced by the working class.

experimental film A sequence of images, literal or abstract, that does not necessarily form a narrative. An experimental film can be animated, live action, computer generated, or a combination of all three. Noteworthy examples of experimental films include Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog) (1929), Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), and A Movie (1958).

film noir French for “dark film.” Originally used by French critics to describe films characterized by pessimism, cynicism, and a dark, somber tone, the term has been used to describe black-and-white Hollywood melodramas of the 1940s and 1950s that portray the seedy side of life. Typically, a film noir is shot with lighting that emphasizes shadow and stark contrasts, abounds in night scenes, and contains a cynical antihero.

gelatin silver print A positive image (prints or transparencies in which light and dark correspond to the tonal range of the original subject) composed of light-sensitive silver particles held in a binder layer of gelatin on paper. Beginning in the late 1870s, this technique was used to make contact prints and enlargements from negatives. Gelatin silver enlarging papers continue to be widely used for black-and-white photographs today.

happening Developed by Allan Kaprow in the late 1950s, a happening is a non-verbal, theatrical production that abandons stage-audience structure, as well as the usual plot or narrative line of traditional theatre. Although a compartmented organization may be used, the performers are considered as objects—often kinesthetically involved—within an overall design of environment, timing, sound, color and light. Found environments are often used and built upon, but the events are not casually arrived at, nor are they entirely accidental and spontaneous.

installation art An art form in which the artist uses any combination of materials (natural materials, video, sound, performance, painting, etc.) to create a visualization of three-dimensionality. An installation often occupies a space into which the viewer can enter. 37

New Wave cinema One of the most significant film movements in the history of the cinema. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, the New Wave rejuvenated France’s already prestigious cinema and energized the international art cinema, as well as film criticism and theory. The New Wave dramatically changed filmmaking inside and outside France by encouraging new styles, themes, and modes of production. performance art An art form that consists of or features a performance by the artist. photomontage Largely the creation of the Berlin Dadaists, photomontage is a technique of making images from bits of different preexisting photographs that are cut out, arranged, and pasted down to form a composition. Prominent among its pioneers were Raoul Hausmann, John Heartfield, and Hannah Höch. Photomontage has also been used by Surrealists such as Max Ernst and Pop artists such as Richard Hamilton. still (or film still) A static photograph, typically a photograph of actors or scenes of a motion picture created for publicity or documentary purposes.

Definitions were drawn from the following sources:

Dictionary of the Arts. Edited by Chris Murray. Oxfordshire, UK: Helicon Publishing Limited, 1994.

Encyclopedia Britannica Online. www.britannica.com.

The Harper Collins Dictionary of Terms and Techniques. Edited by Ralph Mayer. New York: Harper Prennial, 1969.

ICP International Center of Photography Encyclopedia of Photography. New York: Crown, 1984.

The Oxford Dictionary of Art. Edited by Ian Chilvers and Harold Osborne. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

The Thames and Hudson Dictionary of Art Terms. Edited by Edward Lucie-Smith. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1984. 38 bibliogr aphy

Books

Capa, Cornell, ed. The Concerned Photographer. New York: Grossman Publishers, 1968. This anthology of documentary photography is the catalogue of a land- mark exhibition organized by Cornell Capa in 1967 at the Riverside Museum. It introduced the term “concerned photography” to under- score the alleged ethical obligations of the photographer to document and publicize the most troubling parts of society.

DeCarava, Roy, and Langston Hughes. Sweet Flypaper of Life. New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1967. A book of photographs by Roy DeCarava with accompanying poems by Langston Hughes. The documentary-style photographs depict black life in America. Simpson credits this book as having a decisive influence on her work, particularly in the interplay between text and image.

Golden, Thelma, ed. Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary Art. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1994. This book, which accompanied an exhibition of the same name, is a thorough examination of the black male subject in visual culture.

——— . Lorna Simpson. London: Phaidon, 2002. A comprehensive study of Simpson’s art from the early 1980s to most recent works. Included are essays by Kellie Jones and Chrissie Iles, as well as an interview with Simpson and an extensive bibliography.

Morrison, Toni. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination. New York: Vintage Books, 1992. A book consisting of a series of three essays that examine the opera- tions of whiteness and blackness in classics of American literature such as Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn and Ernest Hemmingway’s To Have and Have Not. Among the works explored are books that have not traditionally been discussed in regard to race.

Robinson, Jontyle Theresa, ed. Bearing Witness: Contemporary Works by African American Women Artists. New York: Spelman College and Rizzoli International Publications, 1996. Features an essay on Simpson’s Wigs and 9 Props. Provides a discussion on the theme of the eroticization of the black female body. 39

Simpson, Lorna, and Sarah J. Rogers. Lorna Simpson: Interior/Exterior, Full/Empty. Columbus, Ohio: Wexner Center for the Arts/The Ohio State University, 1997. This publication presents the film project that Simpson developed during an artist-in-residence program at the Wexner Center for the Arts.

Wallace, Michelle. Invisibility Blues: From Popular Culture to Theory. London and New York: Verso, 1990. An examination of the ways that mainstream feminism and popular culture have overlooked and obscured the experience of black women.

Willis, Deborah. Lorna Simpson. San Francisco: The Friends of Photography, 1992. A survey of Simpson’s early photographs and installations, according to the notion of racial invisibility. The author also examines the artist’s work within the context of African American art tradition. Includes an interview with the artist.

——— . Reflections in Black. New York: W. W. Norton, 2000.

——— . The Black Female Body: A Photographic History. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002.

Wright, Beryl, and Saidiya J. Hartman. Lorna Simpson: For the Sake of the Viewer. New York: Universe Publishers; Chicago: Museum of Contemporary Art, 1992 An overview of the traditional ways of representing and seeing the black, female body and a discussion of the ways in which Simpson critiques and resists this tradition.

Articles

Brockington, Horace. “Logical Anonymity.” The International Review of African American Art 15, no. 3 (1999): 20–29. An examination of Simpson’s films. The author also investigates the distinguishing characteristics of Simpson’s cinematic style and its impact on the viewer. hooks, bell. “Lorna Simpson: Waterbearer.” Artforum (September 1993): 136–37. Hook’s assessment of the photograph Waterbearer addresses the way Simpson handles issues of history and memory as they pertain to the African American experience. 40

Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Screen 16, no. 3 (Fall 1975). A seminal essay that introduced the term “male gaze.” Mulvey shows how film reinforces male dominance.

Pollack, Barbara. “Turning Down the Stereotypes.” ARTNews (September 2002): 136–39. A review of Simpson’s work as it relates to the themes of identity and racial stereotypes.

Ross, Ellen. “Conversation: Ellen Ross with Cindy Sherman and Lorna Simpson.” Yard (Fall 2004): 22.

Sekula, Allan. “The Body and the Archive.” In The Contest of Meaning: Critical Histories of Photography, ed. Richard Bolton, pp. 342–88. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1989. An influential essay that argues that the advent of photography facili- tated the creation of racial stereotypes and led to the practice of racial profiling. Sekula also examines how viewers are conditioned to infer an individual’s moral and psychological character from his portrait.

Wilkes, Andrew. “Lorna Simpson.” Aperture (Fall 1993): 14–23. Includes an interview with Simpson and a review of her installations and photographs of the ’80s and early ’90s.

Wilson, Judith. “Beauty Rites: Towards an Anatomy of Culture in African American Women’s Art.” The International Review of African American Art 11, no. 3 (1994): 11–17. An examination of the work of African American artists on hair aesthetics as they relate to African American identities. The author discusses Simpson’s representation and use of hair as a marker of identity in her work. web re source s 41

Albright-Knox Art Gallery http://www.albrightknox.org/ArtStart/lSimpson.html Includes an introduction on the artist’s work and suggestions for hands-on activities and discussion.

Artcyclopedia www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/simpson_lorna.html Contains various links related to Simpson, including a list of Museums and Galleries where her work may be found.

CIRCA Art Magazine http://www.recirca.com/backissues/c104/simpson.shtml A detailed review of the 2003 Lorna Simpson retrospective at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin.

The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago http://www.mcachicago.org/MCA/Education/Teachers/Book/ Simpson-txt.html This teacher resource produced by The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago includes short biographical information on Simpson, a short discussion of She (1992), and ideas for classroom activities.

Sean Kelly Gallery http://www.skny.com/lasso-bin/artist_detail.lasso?-token.ID=56 A biography of Simpson covering the years 1960-80, an extensive bibliography of articles on the artist, and a list of public collections where her art can be seen.

The Walker Art Center www.walkerart.org/programs/vaexhibsimpson.html Contains the presentation of Scenarios: Recent Work by Lorna Simpson, an exhibition at the Walker Art Center (April 11–July 11, 1999). Includes an excerpt from an interview with the artist on her video pieces.