Lorna Simpson: Revised and Expanded Edition
The most comprehensive and up-to-date monograph available on the work of celebrated artist Lorna Simpson, a trailblazer who continues to influence and inspire.
This landmark book documents Simpson's career in its entirety, up to her most recent work - Simpson's portrait of Rihanna for the January 2021 cover of Essence has been deemed as one of the most iconic fashion images ever made by a panel of experts in The New York Magazine . In doing so, it sheds light on the remarkable path that Simpson paved to global critical acclaim and art-world stardom. The first edition of this sell-out volume has been thoroughly revised and updated, including a new essay by Guggenheim Deputy Director Naomi Beckwith.
Specifications:
- Format: Hardback
- Size: 290 x 250 mm (11 3/8 x 9 7/8 in)
- Pages: 240 pp
- Illustrations: 240 illustrations
- ISBN: 9781838661243
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Lorna Simpson Collages
"Black women's heads of hair are galaxies unto themselves, solar systems, moonscapes, volcanic interiors."—Elizabeth Alexander, from the Introduction
Using advertising photographs of black women (and men) drawn from vintage issues of Ebony and Jet magazines, the exquisite and thought-provoking collages of world-renowned artist Lorna Simpson explore the richly nuanced language of hair. Surreal coiffures made from colorful ink washes, striking geological formations from old textbooks, and other unexpected forms and objects adorn the models to mesmerizingly beautiful effect.
Featuring 160 artworks, an artist's statement, and an introduction by poet, author, and scholar Elizabeth Alexander, this volume celebrates the irresistible power of Simpson's visual vernacular.
Exhibition Itinerary
- Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles, Collages presentation, Los Angeles, CA (May 24 - Jul 1, 2018)
- Hardcover: 192 pages
- Publisher: Chronicle Books (June 5, 2018)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1452161143
- ISBN-13: 978-1452161143
- Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 1 x 10.4 inches
Lorna Simpson
Published on the occasion of the exhibition “Lorna Simpson” presented by Jeu de Paume, Paris, May 28 - September 1, 2013, organized by the Foundation for the Exhibition of Photography, in association with Haus der Kunst, Munich
Published by DelMonico Books, Prestel Publishing, Munich, London and New York (2013) by Joan Simon with contributions by Naomi Beckwith, Marta Gili, Thomas Lax and Elvan Zabunyan
Exhibition Itinerary
- Jeu de Paume, Paris, France (May 28, 2013- Sept 1, 2013)
- Haus Der Kunst, Munich, Germany (Aug 21, 2013 - Feb 2, 2014)
- BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK (Mar 21-Jun 22, 2014)
- Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts (Sep 19, 2014 - Jan 2, 2015)
This comprehensive catalogue of Lorna Simpson's critically acclaimed 30-year body of work highlights her photo-text pieces as well as film and video installations to reveal how the artist explores identity, memory, gender, history, fantasy, and reality. Lorna Simpson is a conceptual artist who uses her camera and words to construct new worlds and deconstruct the worlds we know. This monograph opens with her earliest documentary photographs shot between 1978 and 1980, many never before exhibited, and includes her most recent works: large-scale serigraphs on felt and a work-in-progress video installation, Chess, in which Simpson herself, in a rare appearance in her work, recreates images discovered in an anonymous archival photo album. The book also features the photo-text pieces of the mid-1980s that first brought Simpson critical attention; stills from moving picture installations such as Interior/Exterior, Call Waiting, The Institute, and Momentum; and drawings related to her film and video work. Throughout the volume, Simpson's questioning of memory and representation is evident, whether in her moving juxtaposition of text and image, in her pairings of staged self-images with their sources in found photographs, or in her haunting video projection Cloudscape and its echo in the felt work Cloud.
- Hardcover: 216 pages
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 3791352660
- ISBN-13: 978-3791352664
- Product Dimensions: 11.7 x 10 x 0.9 inches
Lorna Simpson: Works on Paper
Exhibition Catalogue for “Lorna Simpson: Works on Paper” exhibition at the Aspen Art Museum, July 26 - September 22, 2013
Published by Aspen Art Press, Aspen, Colorado (2013) by Heidi Zuckerman Jacobson with contributions by Hilton Als, Connie Butler, and Franklin Sirmans
One of the leading artists of her generation, Lorna Simpson (born 1960) came to prominence in the mid-1980s through her photographic and textual works that challenged conventional attitudes toward race, gender and cultural memory with a potent mixture of formal elegance and conceptual rigor. Published on the occasion of her 2013 exhibition at Aspen Art Museum, Lorna Simpson: Works on Paper highlights four recent bodies of work on paper that explore the complex relationship between the photographic archive and processes of self-fashioning, including a new group of works being developed during her time as the AAM's 2013 Jane and Marc Nathanson Distinguished Artist in Residence. As in Simpson's earlier works, these new drawings and collages take the African-American woman as a point of departure, continuing her longstanding examination of the ways that gender and culture shape the experience of life in our contemporary multiracial society. This beautifully illustrated catalogue features new scholarship by New Yorker staff writer Hilton Als, MoMA Chief Curator of Drawings, Connie Butler, LACMA Chief Curator of Contemporary Art, Franklin Sirmans, and the AAM's Nancy and Bob Magoon CEO and Director, Heidi Zuckerman Jacobson.
- Hardcover: 336 pages
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0934324638
- ISBN-13: 978-0934324632
- Product Dimensions: 10.6 x 9.1 x 1.2 inches
Lorna Simpson: Ink
In Conversation; Lorna Simpson & Glenn Ligon
Edited by Eve MacSweeney
Published on the occasion of: “Lorna Simpson: Ink” exhibition, October 23 - December 6, 2008 at Salon 94, New York
- Published by Salon 94, New York, New York (2008)
- Paperback: 80 pages
- Language: English
- ASIN: B001X5KCZY
Lorna Simpson
Exhibition catalogue for “Lorna Simpson” exhibition, organized by the American Federation of Arts, 2006 - 2007
Published by Harry N. Abrams, New York in association with the American Federation of Arts, New York, New York (2006) by Helaine Posner with contributions by Okwui Enwezor, Hilton Als, Isaac Julien, Thelma Golden and Shimim M. Momin.
Exhibition Itinerary
- Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (April 16 - July 10, 2006)
- Miami Art Museum (October 13, 2006 - January 21, 2007)
- Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (February 8 - May 6, 2007)
- The Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston (September 7 - December 2, 2007)
Lorna Simpson is one of the leading artists of her generation, devoted to the beauty of image-making, innovatively juxtaposing the figure and gesture with text and narrative. This rich monograph, created to accompany the major retrospective of Simpson's work touring in Los Angeles, Miami, and New York (among other destinations) beginning this spring, includes insightful essays by curator and critic Okwui Enwezor and New Yorker writer Hilton Als, and a conversation with the artist, Isaac Julien, and Thelma Golden, along with 126 reproductions from Simpson's formally elegant, subtly provocative body of work-including her recent work.
- Hardcover: 158 pages
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0810955482
- ISBN-13: 978-0810955486
- Product Dimensions: 11 x 9.8 x 0.8 inches
Lorna Simpson
Exhibition Catalogue for “Lorna Simpson” exhibit at Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea, March 5- May 20, 2004, Spain
Published by Xunta de Galicia, Santiago de Compostela, Spain (2004) by Marta Gili with contribution by Miguel Fernandez-Cid
- Hardcover: 66 pages
- Language: English and Spanish
- ISBN-10: 8445337521
- ISBN-13: 978-8445337523
- Product Dimensions: 8 x 8 x 0.4 inches
Lorna Simpson
Published by Consorcio Salamanca, Spain (2002) by Marta Gili with contributions by Eungie Joo and Leslie Camhi
This comprehensive catalogue of Lorna Simpson's critically acclaimed 30-year body of work highlights her photo-text pieces as well as film and video installations to reveal how the artist explores identity, memory, gender, history, fantasy, and reality. Lorna Simpson is a conceptual artist who uses her camera and words to construct new worlds and deconstruct the worlds we know. This monograph opens with her earliest documentary photographs shot between 1978 and 1980, many never before exhibited, and includes her most recent works: large-scale serigraphs on felt and a work-in-progress video installation, Chess, in which Simpson herself, in a rare appearance in her work, recreates images discovered in an anonymous archival photo album. The book also features the photo-text pieces of the mid-1980s that first brought Simpson critical attention; stills from moving picture installations such as Interior/Exterior, Call Waiting, The Institute, and Momentum; and drawings related to her film and video work. Throughout the volume, Simpson's questioning of memory and representation is evident, whether in her moving juxtaposition of text and image, in her pairings of staged self-images with their sources in found photographs, or in her haunting video projection Cloudscape and its echo in the felt work Cloud.
- Paperback: 94 pages
- Language: English and Spanish
- ISBN-10: 8495719088
- ISBN-13: 978-8495719089
- Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 8.7 x 0.2 inches
Lorna Simpson (Contemporary Artists Series)
Published by Phaidon Press Limited, London, UK (2002) by Kellie Jones with contributions by Thelma Golden, Chrissie Iles, Suzan-Lori Parks and Deborah Willis
Photo-based artist and film-maker Lorna Simpson (b.1960) is considered to be one of the key representatives of African-American visual culture. Emerging in the 1980s, Simpson was, in 1993, the first African-American woman ever to show in the Venice Biennale and to have a solo exhibition in the 'Projects' series of The Museum of Modern Art, New York. She is also one of very few African-American artists ever to have exhibited at Documenta, as she did in both 1987 and 2002. Simpson's well-known fragmented photographs, combining images with fragments of text, create mysterious and quietly intriguing works that reflect the silence of a portion of society - African-American women - that is rarely if ever represented in art. She raises profound questions about how we represent, see and communicate with each other and ourselves. Thelma Golden, Curator of Simpson's autumn 2002 exhibition at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, talks with the artist about the shift from her signature photographic work to more cinematographic and sculptural art. In her Survey, critic and scholar Kellie Jones places the work in the context of the history of African-American culture as well as the recent history of self-portraiture in art through photography and performance. Chrissie Iles, Curator of Simpson's film presentation at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2002), analyses in her Focus the artist's filmworks. The artist's fragmentary use of speech is paralleled in her Artist's Choice, an extract from Top Dog/UnderDog by contemporary African-American playwright Suzan Lori Parks, and in her project notes included in her Artist's Writings.
- Series: Contemporary Artists
- Paperback: 160 pages
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0714840386
- ISBN-13: 978-0714840383
- Product Dimensions: 11.7 x 9.9 x 0.7 inches
Lorna Simpson: Interior/Exterior, Full/Empty
Exhibition Catalogue for “Interior/Exterior, Full/Empty” exhibit at the Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University, September 19, 1997-January 4, 1998
Published by Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio (1998) by Sarah J. Rogers
- Paperback: 60 pages
- Publisher: Wexner Center for the Arts (February 2, 1998)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1881390179
- ISBN-13: 978-1881390176
- Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 9 x 0.2 inches
Lorna Simpson
Exhibition Catalogue for “Lorna Simpson” exhibition at The Vienna Secession, 1995
Published by The Vienna Secession [Wiener Secession], Vienna, Austria (1995)
Organized by Sylvie Liska and Kathrin Rhomberg with republished text by bell hooks
- Hardcover: 23 pages
- Publisher: Wiener Secession (1995)
- Language: German
- ISBN-10: 3900803773
- ISBN-13: 978-3900803773
Lorna Simpson: For the Sake of the Viewer
Published on the occasion of the exhibition “Lorna Simpson: For the Sake of the Viewer,” November 21, 1992 - March 14, 1993, organized by Beryl J. Wright, Associate Curator, Exhibitions, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Illinois
Published by UNIVERSE, New York, New York (1992) by Beryl J. Wright with contribution by Saidiya V. Hartman
Exhibition Itinerary
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (November 21, 1992 - March 14, 1993
The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii (June 8 - August 1, 1993)
The Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, Ohio (September 5 - November 7, 1993)
Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington (November 24, 1993 - February 6, 1994)
- Paperback: 79 pages
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0876636377
- ISBN-13: 978-0876636374
- Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 7.7 x 0.5 inches
Lorna Simpson (Untitled 54)
Published by Friends of Photography, San Francisco, California (1992) by Deborah Willis with contribution by Andy Grundberg
- Paperback: 72 pages
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0933286600
- ISBN-13: 978-0933286603
- Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.3 x 0.5 inches
Lorna Simpson
Exhibition Catalogue for “Lorna Simpson” exhbition at Josh Baer Gallery, NY September 8- October 14, 1989
Published by Josh Baer Gallery, New York, New York (1989)
Contribution by Kellie Jones
- Paperback: 12 pages
- Language: English
- ASIN: B001UGC67S