Media information: Monday 24 February 2014

LORNA SIMPSON 21 March – 22 June 2014

BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead presents the first retrospective in Europe of Lorna Simpson (born Brooklyn, New York in 1960). Simpson’s work links photography, text, video and archival material. Emphasising a conceptual and performative approach, she works within the charged duality of past and present, word and image and the interplay between still and moving images.

The exhibition at BALTIC spans 30 years of Simpson’s practice, beginning with large-scale works incorporating image and text that first brought her to critical attention in the mid-1980s. Stark, abstracted photographs are presented alongside short texts that, rather than being descriptive, add allusive narratives leaving room for the viewers’ own associations. Simpson employs the figures of American women and men in these images to challenge conventional views of gender, class, race, culture, history and memory and the ways in which these influence relationships and experiences.

In the mid-1990s Simpson began creating large multi-panel photographs printed on felt after being introduced to the work of Joseph Beuys. Moving away from the traditional photographic surface and from depictions of the body, exterior and interior scenes are enlarged beyond the already greater than life-size images of her earlier work to create extremely large-scale multi- part works including The Car 1995 and Still 1997. Often accompanied by longer texts, the felt works suggest the atmosphere and dialogues of film noir, while provoking ideas of surveillance as well as race and class.

Simpson’s explorations of identity and memory have continued through her collecting of found photographs and, more recently, through her work in film and video. For 1957-2009 2009, Simpson found 299 photographs shot in Los Angeles in 1957 of a woman seemingly playing roles for a camera, perhaps to advance a possible acting career. Fascinated with the idea of an African-American taking on such a project in LA in the 1950s with such dedication, Simpson responded in 2009 by mimicking the various roles of the woman and her male co-conspirator (the first time Simpson appeared in her own work) and presenting her own image alongside the original photographs. Her most recent video installation Chess 2013, completed especially for this exhibition, evolved from these archival photographs and is a further exploration of role play. In the three-channel projection, one screen shows the male character and another that of the female – both are played by Simpson. The third screen shows composer Jason Moran playing his score for the piece, accompanying the characters as they play their games. Mirrors surround the three characters, a surrealist device that unsettles and visually replicates the subjects in four positions.

This exhibition has been co-organized by the Foundation for the Exhibition of Photography, Minneapolis, and the Jeu de Paume, Paris, in association with the Haus der Kunst, Munich, and in collaboration with BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead. Curated by Joan Simon.

END

For further information, interview requests and images please contact Chloë Barker, BALTIC Media Relations Executive T: 0191 440 4915 E: [email protected]

NOTES TO EDITORS

LORNA SIMPSON was born in 1960 in Brooklyn where she now lives and works.

RECENT SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS: Lorna Simpson: Works on Paper, Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, Colorado (2013);Gathered, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York (2011); Duet, The Studio Museum, Harlem, New York (2007); American Federation of the Arts, travelling to Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Miami Art Museum, Miami, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Kalamzoo, Michigan, Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina (2006-7); Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2003).

SELECTED INTERNATIONAL PRESENTATIONS: Deutsche Börse Photography Prize, London (2014); Hugo Boss Prize Award at the Guggenheim Museum (1998); Documenta XI (2002); Venice Biennale (1990).

BALTIC is a major international centre for contemporary art situated on the south bank of the River Tyne in Gateshead, England. BALTIC presents a constantly changing, distinctive and ambitious programme of exhibitions and events, and is a world leader in the presentation, commissioning and communication of contemporary visual art. BALTIC has welcomed over 5 million visitors, since opening to the public in July 2002.

GALLERY INFORMATION: BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art Admission: FREE Gateshead Quays South Shore Road Opening hours: Gateshead Monday – Sunday 10.00-18.00 NE8 3BA Except Tuesdays 10.30-18.00 UK balticmill.com Tel: +44 (0) 191 478 1810 Fax: +44 (0) 191 478 1922 Email: [email protected]

BALTIC is supported by: