Lorna Simpson response

What I found that I liked most about Lorna Simpson’s photography was her film-noir style. She has a great eye for incorporating a cinematic quality in her images, which is also on display in her short films. When Simpson accompanies the photographs with text like she does, the pictures are almost able to tell a story, as if they were a still from a film. I was really intrigued by this ability because it is not something a lot of artists can do. Most photographs are about a specific, single moment in time, whereas Simpson’s pictures tell more, and this talent sets her work apart.

I also found it interesting that Simpson does not focus primarily on the past in her artwork like many African-American artists do. She is not interested in victimizing any race or gender. She does focus on the inequalities still present in our society, but seemingly more from the sense of, look how far our society has come and yet how much more there is to do. Her art is not particularly aggressive, but she does provoke the viewer to think about race and gender in society and the flaws in the system. She challenges her viewers to become more aware of social and political norms that are accepted without second thought, to question why and what can be changed. At the same time, though, her message is not blunt. When taken out of context, many of her images are not all that political and could be interpreted in a variety of ways. However, when combined with text, the meaning becomes clearer. She is careful though to still allow some wiggle room for the viewer, such that each individual viewer sees something slightly different, giving her art a unique quality that many of her contemporaries lack.

The image is a still from her "Corridor" work, which I chose because, while "Corridor" is a film, even the still seems to be telling a story and is pretty powerful.