{"id":90920,"date":"2015-10-15T15:26:29","date_gmt":"2015-10-15T19:26:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=90920"},"modified":"2015-10-15T15:26:29","modified_gmt":"2015-10-15T19:26:29","slug":"a-photographic-memory-in-the-studio-with-lorna-simpson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/10\/15\/a-photographic-memory-in-the-studio-with-lorna-simpson\/","title":{"rendered":"A Photographic Memory: In the Studio with Lorna Simpson"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_90925\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-90925\" class=\"wp-image-90925\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/20150929-img_2846.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"900\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/20150929-img_2846.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/20150929-img_2846-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/20150929-img_2846-683x1024.jpg 683w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-90925\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lorna Simpson. Photo: Menelik Puryear<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em>After we summited the ridges high above Aspen in late July of this year, the artist Lorna Simpson and I finally had the occasion to speak at length. Simpson, in town to be honored by the Aspen Art Museum with the institution\u2019s Aspen Award for Art, had taken advantage of the good weather for a day hike. Catching our breath, we talked about her life as an artist in New York during the nineties and the Brooklyn Heights high school where her daughter and I share a common history. Simpson, a Brooklyn native, still lives in the borough, where she also keeps a studio. We caught up earlier this month to continue the conversation. Here she talks about her artistic process, creative inspiration, and the joys of working without a deadline.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>I just finished this piece titled <em>Moveableness<\/em>, and in many ways, it embodies both my conceptual interests and my process as an artist. It\u2019s based on an image that I found in an <em>Ebony<\/em> magazine from the sixties, the original image depicting a modernist interior and a woman ascending a staircase. There\u2019s something in that image I found mesmerizing, not only in the architectural details but also in her stride.<\/p>\n<p>As a next step, that image was sent to a man I work with to do my silk screening. In the case of <em>Moveableness<\/em>, the image transfer was done over several panels. With the image broken up, I was free to play with the arrangement of the individual panels, manipulating them to foreclose, showing the original in its totality. That notion of fragmentation, especially of the body, is prevalent in our culture, and it\u2019s reflected in my works. We\u2019re fragmented not only in terms of how society regulates our bodies but in the way we think about ourselves.<\/p>\n<p>Also, too, photographs\u2014taken by me or sourced from found imagery\u2014have played an integral role in my practice as an artist, as is the case with <em>Moveableness.<\/em> My collages combine images of heads belonging to black women with the addition of ink washes to illustrate their hair. I can trace my original interest in found images to a discovery I made of these old <em>Ebony <\/em>magazines belonging to my grandmother. I found them really satisfying to look at, because they\u2019re so contextual\u2014from a particular time and for a particular audience. From there, I started collecting tons of <em>Ebony<\/em> and <em>Jet <\/em>magazines and other, similarly themed printed matter, ranging from the late 1930s through till the late 1970s. For me, the images hearken back to my childhood, but are also a lens through which to see the past fifty years in American history.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_90930\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/ultra-violet-1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-90930\" class=\"wp-image-90930\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/ultra-violet-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"902\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/ultra-violet-1.png 644w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/ultra-violet-1-200x300.png 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-90930\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lorna Simpson, <i>Ultra Violet 1<\/i> (detail), 2015, collage and ink on paper, 14.6&#8243; x 18.5&#8243;.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>But what\u2019s just as important as the photographic components are the more tactile, immediate elements, such as the inks I use. With ink, there\u2019s a free-form, spontaneous quality to it that complements the more methodical process that is involved in the selection and placement of the photographic or found image. Working with ink is very much about being in the moment, and as a result there\u2019s a degree of subconsciousness that comes through. It\u2019s not the kind of process where you can go, Okay, that side\u2019s going to be red, and it\u2019s going to look like this. It has a very immediate, in-the-moment kind of flow to it. It requires you to make split-second decisions in the way you handle ink or the way ink flows on any given surface\u2014that\u2019s always surprising to me.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_90922\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-90922\" class=\"wp-image-90922\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/20150929-img_2704.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/20150929-img_2704.jpg 1500w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/20150929-img_2704-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/20150929-img_2704-1024x683.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-90922\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: Menelik Puryear<\/p><\/div>\n<p>I\u2019m just coming off having works in several large exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale, and there was a traveling exhibition of my work that started in 2013. And so now I\u2019m just getting back into my studio without the pressure or intention of painting with a quick and fast dealing looming over me. I\u2019m looking forward to spending time with my work, thinking about what I\u2019m doing with it. For the last nine months now, I\u2019ve been working out of this three-thousand-square-foot studio, which, when I first started making pieces here, was quite an intense shift in scale\u2014it\u2019s really affected my approach to my paintings.<\/p>\n<p><div id=\"attachment_90926\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-90926\" class=\"wp-image-90926\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/20150929-img_2871.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"900\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/20150929-img_2871.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/20150929-img_2871-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/20150929-img_2871-683x1024.jpg 683w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-90926\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: Menelik Puryear<\/p><\/div> <div id=\"attachment_90924\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-90924\" class=\"wp-image-90924\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/20150929-img_2816.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/20150929-img_2816.jpg 1500w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/20150929-img_2816-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/20150929-img_2816-1024x683.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-90924\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: Menelik Puryear<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n<p>Without any specific show on the horizon, my routine has taken on a different rhythm as well. When I wake up in the morning, I usually begin with meditation before focusing on what the day ahead holds for me. I\u2019ve come to rely on my studio assistant to help cordon off elements of the organizational, day-to-day practicalities that can sometimes become overwhelming. That allows me to create a space where I can focus on what I want to think about in terms of my work. When that mental space, that buffer, is there, I&#8217;m able to step away from the madness of things. And it\u2019s wonderful.<\/p>\n<p><em>Joseph Akel is a writer and editor based in New York City and San Francisco. A regular contributor to<\/em> Frieze, <em>the<\/em>\u00a0New York Times<em>, and <\/em>Artforum<em>, among others, he\u2019s a Ph.D. candidate in the University of California, Berkeley\u2019s Rhetoric Department. Most recently he edited and contributed an essay to the forthcoming publication <\/em>Wolves Like Us<em>, a photographic series depicting the Angulo Brothers, subjects of the documentary <\/em>The Wolfpack<em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After we summited the ridges high above Aspen in late July of this year, the artist Lorna Simpson and I finally had the occasion to speak at length. Simpson, in town to be honored by the Aspen Art Museum with the institution\u2019s Aspen Award for Art, had taken advantage of the good weather for a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":705,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1857],"tags":[19808,9241,958,2051,19806,19809,19807,19805,269,19804,15139],"class_list":["post-90920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-studio-visit","tag-african-american-magazines","tag-artists","tag-brooklyn","tag-collage","tag-ebony","tag-ink","tag-jet","tag-lorna-simpson","tag-magazines","tag-studios","tag-venice-biennale"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>In the Studio with Lorna Simpson<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" 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