Lorna Simpson
Act 1, scene IXIII
Act 1, scene IXIII
$595,000
2021
Ink and screenprint on gessoed fiberglass
259.1 x 365.8 x 3.5 cm / 102 x 144 x 1 ⅜ in
Monumentally scaled and deeply mesmerizing, ‘Act 1, scene IXIII’ (2021) is an outstanding example of Lorna Simpson’s painting practice. As Simpson spent the majority of her three-decade career as a conceptual photographer and collagist, this work is a testament to the artist’s ever expanding and multi-disciplinary oeuvre. Arresting and poetic, ‘Act 1, scene IXIII’ engages with themes central to Simpson’s wider practice, including questions of representation, identity, gender, race and history.
‘Act 1, scene IXIII’ belongs to a new body of work by Simpson that expands on the acclaimed Ice series, which incorporates appropriated imagery from vintage Jet and Ebony magazines and found photo booth images—which have been integral sources for Simpson over the last decade—as well as dissimilar Associated Press photographs featuring natural elements. [1] Notably, over the past few years, Simpson has developed a ‘preoccupation with ice,’ and has sourced imagery of glaciers, oceans, mountain tops and smoke.
Simpson layers this natural imagery alongside texts and advertisements of women from her collection of vintage Ebony and Jet magazines, which she silkscreens onto fiberglass panels and gessoes into gestural and fluid expressions of ink, creating surreal and imagined environments. By doing so, the artist reconfigures a diverse array of visual narratives to emerge from unexpected origins. The result is a highly complex, layered body of work that is simultaneously figurative yet abstract, realistic yet illusory.
Looking at ‘Act 1, scene IXIII’ more closely, Simpson depicts a mystifying landscape, a dark sea and wash of tempered gray contrasting with a glacier colored in shades of rich blue. Barely discernible vertical strips of vibrant red text and another drenched in inky washes of gray emerge from the somber scene, evoking a memory or a dream. Simpson is sparing in color, her disciplined palette of inky blacks and grays is cinematic, reflecting her earlier works.
‘Act 1, scene IXIII’ demonstrates Simpson’s mastery of paint and evolution of her practice. As noted by Joan Simon, author of a celebrated monograph on her work, ‘Simpson’s search for different images and different mediums, for different ways of addressing the body—even through its absence—is a through line from the outset of her career.’ [2] Layered and multivalent, Simpson’s practice deploys metaphor, metonymy and formal prowess to offer a potent response to life today.
About the artist
Born in Brooklyn, Lorna Simpson came to prominence in the 1980s with her pioneering approach to conceptual photography. Simpson’s early work—particularly her striking juxtapositions of text and staged images—raised questions about the nature of representation, identity, gender, race and history that continue to drive the artist’s expanding and multi-disciplinary practice today. She deftly explores the medium’s umbilical relation to memory and history, both of which are central themes within her work.
Artwork images © Lorna Simpson. Photo: James Wang
Portrait of Lorna Simpson © Lorna Simpson. Photo: James Wang
1.) For Simpson, the figures in the magazines chronicle periods and expressions of self-determination, serving as a lens of American history. Equally, the Associated Press photos of natural elements have been a wellspring of inspiration for Simpson, serving as the basis for seminal works such as ‘Waterbearer’ (1986) and ‘Riunite & Ice’ (2014 – 2018).
2.) Joan Simon, ‘Easy to Remember, Hard to Forget: Lorna Simpson’s Gestures and Reenactments,’ in ‘Lorna Simpson,’ Munich/DE, London/UK and New York NY: DelMonico Books, Prestel Publishing, 2013, p. 18-19.