Lorna Simpson: Gathered

Abstract

The article is inspired by the latest work of Lorna Simpson, a Brooklyn-based artist. In her photoworks Simpson deals with the African American identity, exploring and challenging issues of gender, race and culture. In her show entitled “Gathered” and displayed at the Elisabeth A. Sackle Center for Feminist Art in the Brooklyn Museum of New York in 2011, Simpson realizes two installations of black females photographic portraits. In the first installation Simpson exhibit a series of photo-booth portraits of unknown black women, bought on e-Bay and collected by the artist. The second one, May June July August 1957/2009 (2009), is made up by a series of black and white vintage snapshots of a young African American woman, posing for pinups: among them, the artist inserts her own portraits, acting the same poses of the unknown model. Linking personal memories with a fictionalized reconstruction of the past, the work exhibited in Brooklyn points a new direction of Simpson’s investigation on memory, truth and fiction.