Lorna Simpson Exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum

Lorna Simpson: Gathered presents works that explore this Brooklyn-born artist’s interest in the interplay between fact and fiction, identity and history. Through works that incorporate hundreds of original and found vintage photographs of African Americans that she collects from eBay and flea markets, Lorna Simpson undermines the assumption that archival materials are objective documents of history.

January 28–August 21, 2011

Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, 4th Floor

Lorna Simpson: Gathered exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum

In one series, titled May June July August, ’57/’09, comprising 123 vintage and contemporary black-and-white photographs, Simpson juxtaposes images of a young African American woman (and an occasional male figure) who posed for pinups in Los Angeles in 1957 with self-portraits in which the artist acts as a doppelganger for the model. She replicates with precise detail the poses and settings of the original photographs, arranging the work in grid patterns. Linking the historical photographs with her staged responses creates a fictionalized narrative in which the two characters appear to be linked across history in a shared identity or destiny.

The exhibition also includes examples of Simpson’s series of installations of black-and-white photo-booth portraits of African Americans from the Jim Crow era and a film work.

Lorna Simpson: Gathered is organized by Catherine Morris, Curator of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, Brooklyn Museum.

This exhibition is made possible by the Elizabeth A. Sackler Foundation.

For more information go to the Brooklyn Museum website.