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Lorna SimpsonVan Der See Prop Vase1993
1993
About the Item
Lorna Simpson (b. 1960) is an American artist renowned as a pioneer of conceptual photography. Her artwork explores the interplay between historical memory, culture, and African-American identity. Her work frequently confronts how race and gender shape human interactions and experiences. The artist's distinctive style revolves around the use, and frequent combination, of photography and text.
"Reclining Nude" is part of Simpson's series "9 Props," a body of work that prompts viewers to reconsider the conventional boundaries of the portraiture genre. The black and white photograph features a vase with a broad, round base that tapers into a trumpet-like opening. Remarkably Simpson had the 9 vessels specifically fabricated, to produce the series. Click here to learn more about her practice including this body of work in a recent New York Times article.
Text below the image details the aesthetic qualities of a portrait by James Van Der See, a prominent figure in the Harlem Renaissance. While the text appears to describe Van Der See's subject, a young Black woman in a sensual pose, the application of this description to the vase creates a unique juxtaposition, serving as a rich inquiry into representation across race, gender, and art. It also raises questions about objectification of the black female body.
In 2007, Simpson's work was the subject of a major retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York). Fittingly this work can be found in the Whitney Musuem's permanent collection. Her work is represented in prestigious collections across the globe including the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago); the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), and Haus der Kunst (Munich), amongst others.
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"Van Der See Prop Vase" aka "Reclining Nude"
USA, 1993
Silkscreen on Rives BFK paper
Signed, dated, and numbered by the artist
Artist's proof (a.p.) outside of an edition of 95
25"H 19.5"W (work)
Very good condition
- Creator:Lorna Simpson (1960, American)
- Creation Year:1993
- Dimensions:Height: 25 in (63.5 cm)Width: 19.5 in (49.53 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:Toronto, CA
- Reference Number:
Lorna Simpson
From collaging photos from ads in vintage issues of Jet and Ebony magazines to breaking down subjects into fragments of hair or the body, Lorna Simpson (b. 1960) takes a conceptual approach to photography in her ongoing examination of identity.
Whether it’s the 21 lithographs printed on felt of various hairstyles for her Wigs (Portfolio) (1994) or her Guarded Conditions (1989) series, which calls out the violence that Black women encounter with its fragmentation of a woman’s body across color Polaroid prints, Simpson’s best-known projects comprise text and image to confront conventional ideas of beauty, gender and race. In particular, she uses her own experiences in radical work that often challenges universally perpetuated beauty standards that have long excluded Black women.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, where she continues to live and work, Simpson initially took documentary photographs as she traveled the world in the 1970s. She then studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York and the University of California San Diego, earning her MFA in visual arts there in 1985. It was in graduate school in the 1980s that Simpson shifted her perspective in photography to grapple with complex ideas of objectivity. Some of her early projects combined text with studio images, mostly of Black women, to highlight how photographs are shaped by both context and expectations. Later expanding into film, painting, drawing and sculpture, Simpson has retained that interest in representation and memory at the center of her work, regardless of medium.
In 1990, Simpson became the first Black woman to exhibit at the Venice Biennale, and her career has included solo shows at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.
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