LORNA SIMPSON: FOR THE SAKE OF THE VIEWER
Consider Three Seated Figures (1989), composed of three Polaroid prints of a black woman seated on a stool or table. The plain white background, the bright, even lighting, and the frontal pose employed in each bring to mind identification photos or mug shots. But, unexpectedly, all three are cropped just above the woman’s chin and below her knees, giving us few clues about her situation. Clad only in a white sleeveless shift, so plain it reveals nothing personal, she holds her arms at her sides, her hands alone betraying a slight tension as they rest on or grasp the edges of the table. Considered by themselves these images ages convey the apprehension and vulnerability many women feel in a doctor’s sterile examination room.
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The subjection of body and spirit to exploitation and violence is frequently suggested in Simpson’s work. An untitled work from 1989 pairs two circular black-and-white close-ups of a woman’s neck and shoulders with a vertical row of black plastic plaques bearing words corresponding to acts or objects that encircle, among them “lasso,” “noose,” and “collar.” Our interpretation of these words might vacillate uncertainly between the innocuous and the insidious were it not for the red plaque below them: the phrase “feel the ground sliding from under you” swings the pendulum in the direction of lynchings and other terrors. Simpson’s interest in the body as a site of conflict between the individual and larger, controlling forces continues in her most recent color Polaroids, among them Landscape/Body Parts III, Bio, and Self Possession (all from 1992).
Many other conceptual artists–among them Barbara Kruger and Chicagoan Jeanne Dunning–share Simpson’s highly analytical approach to image making, one that assigns great importance to deconstructing conventions of visual and verbal language. In some hands it results in artwork that’s exceptionally aloof and coolly impersonal. Simpson, however, isn’t content to play safe intellectual games. She reminds us that one person’s right to know, one group’s scrutiny of another leads not necessarily to enlightenment but often to surveillance and subjugation. There’s an urgency coursing through this show, an urgency that springs from rigorous, unflinching reflection on deeply felt experience. For a young artist, Lorna Simpson displays a remarkably mature vision.
