Lorna Simpson

Lorna Simpson is an extremely interesting artist that provokes the truth with the help of her camera. She heightens her audience’s senses through her constant use of drama and suspense. I really like her incorporation of an old film feeling within her pieces. It makes issues that were prominent in the time period she worked in seem old, and all she was doing was bringing them back out so the world could see. Like Barbara Kruger, Simpson also incorporates words and phrases in her pieces. The major difference is that she places them at the side of her works rather than across the piece like Kruger. To me, the choice to do this draws more attention to the picture and her message is not in your face as much as Kruger’s is. Another aspect I find interesting about Simpson is that she relies heavily on history, specifically African American and African American women, for her pieces. She uses this history to emphasize the truth as she believes it is.

      The piece I chose was “Guarded Conditions” by Lorna Simpson. I enjoy the fact that she decided not to show the models’ faces, like she does in many of her pieces, because I think it pulls the audience even more with curiosities as to who the models are. I think by not giving the women an identity she allows them to become victimized by someone. Thus, at the bottom of the photograph she alternates between “Sex Attacks” and “Skin Attacks”.  I think her choice to have the models in a white nightgown point to purity, which will ultimately be taken away by “Sex Attacks” and “Skin Attacks”. Like many of Lorna Simpson’s pieces, this piece gives the raw truth without forcing you to see it immediately like Kruger’s pieces do. When you do realize her message you are definitely taken aback by the rawness of it.