Lorna Simpson

Lorna Simpson

The book 'Lorna Simpson' is unsurprisingly about Lorna Simpson, an artist born in 1960 in Brooklyn, New York. Her first love for visual art was realised when she became ill as a child and saved coupons for a polaroid camera. Since then she has experimented with mediums such as sculpture, films, photographic works, paintings and drawings (1). What she's perhaps known for most, however, is her use of words with her work.

While I am fascinated by the messages her work gives and the power they hold, what interested me in terms of what I could incorporate into my own work is the way she creates a narrative without directly putting it in the faces of the viewer. She often uses sequences, which comes from her desire to work with film(1). 

"One way to get the viewer into the way my brain may be processing something is to make it sequential" - Lorna Simpson (1)

She says that the work is more about time, and that the images don't have to be read in a certain way in order to make sense but instead forces the audience to compare "one thing to the next as you move along" (1).

Additionally, Simpson uses space in order to bring the viewer into the narrative; for example her piece 'Screen' (1986) where she used screens to show how screens divide people within a room. She says it was a way 'of making a three-dimensional piece that was photographic." (1)

In order to create the desired affect, she often takes the same photograph multiple times in which each photo has ever so slight differences from the last. Other times, she produces work which you can clearly see a difference, yet they still intertwine with each other with such ease. 

Bio, 1992, Lorna Simpson

Within this piece, we see a collection of 18 photographs put together in a way that creates its own narrative. The plaques at the top with sentences such as 'Bled to death inside hospital last year' alongside 'bled to death outside hospital 60 years ago' demonstrates how divided facilities were. 'Tendency to Keloid', a word associated with scars, damage and trauma, is paired with 'tendency to be prescribed anti depressants', suggesting to me that people tried to brush off these problems by giving these people pills and hoping for the best. 'choose general and you might lose a shelf of memory' is next to 'choose local and you'll remember too much' is clearly about anesthetic but it also seems to hold a deeper meaning of how much a black person actually wants to remember about their hardships of simply existing.

The second row consists of 6 images of a person with their back to the camera. Their head is cut off, and instead replaced with the sentences in the images above as if that's what defines them. Their gender is unknown, which to me suggest Simpson wanted to make a point that it doesn't matter and what is more important is the fact that they're human, which she's made clear to see through the use of the body and clothing.

The third consists of smart shoes, again facing the same way as the camera. This helps form the body of the person. Each image has a pair, except the photo on the very left which only has one, just above the word 'biopsy'. To me, this helps tie in the words with the images, although the connection is still not stark.

Personally, when looking at this work the common phrase to 'stand on your own two legs' came to mind. The photographer took this person's/these people's away, so how could they possibly do things expected of them without assistance of a more able person? This is how I imagine racism to be like when the artist was growing up in the 60's and so would be very personal to her, and it's not uncommon for her to put up a fight and stand for her and other's rights. 

I really like this was of laying out work. I doubt my images will hold such messages about such huge issues, yet I find the way the images are so simple yet can hold a message as deep as that is amazing, and makes the images easier on the eye.

Sources: 

1. Lorna Simpson, 2002, Lorna Simpson, Thelma Golden, Kellie Jones, Chrissie Iles