About the artwork
Lorna Simpson
Counting, 1991
Dimensions(h x w x d): 73 3/8" x 38"
Photogravure and screenprint
Located in Fariborz Maseeh Hall, basement level, north hallway
In Counting, "[t]hree photographs—a cropped image of a woman’s clavicle, a smokehouse that once held slaves, and a coil of braided hair—are framed against a black background and flanked with texts demarcating different kinds of counting: measures of time and numbers of twists, braids, locks, bricks, and years. Simpson’s practice of pairing photography and text both recalls and questions the systems of documentary and anthropological photography in which pictures are regarded as evidence. While the meaning of Counting is deliberately open-ended, Simpson’s choices of cropping and framing resist traditional ways of presenting the black female body while nevertheless insisting on her presence." (Source: Princeton University Museum of Art.)
About the artist
Lorna Simpson first became well-known in the mid-1980s for her large-scale photograph-and-text works that confront and challenge narrow, conventional views of gender, identity, culture, history and memory. With unidentified figures as a visual point of departure, Simpson uses the figure to examine the ways in which gender and culture shape the interactions, relationships and experiences of our lives in contemporary America. In the mid-1990s, she began creating large multi-panel photographs printed on felt that depict the sites of public—yet unseen—sexual encounters. Over time she turned to film and video works in which individuals engage in enigmatic conversations that seem to address the mysteries of both identity and desire. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art; and Haus der Kunst, Munich.
See more of Lorna Simpson's work on her website.
This work was acquired through Oregon's Percent for Art in Public Places Program, managed by the Oregon Arts Commission.
Banner image courtesy of the artist.