Catalog of exhibitions held at Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, October 14, 2018-January 27, 2019 and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, February 23-May 5, 2019.
Contents:
Preface and acknowledgments / Omar Kholeif. A portrait of an artist: the films of Laurie Simmons / Andrea Karnes -- A doll's house: Laurie Simmons's sense of scale / Calvin Tomkins -- Laurie Simmons: stages / Michael Auping -- Misconstruction/deconstruction: Laurie Simmons and the pictures generation / William J. Simmons -- Room underneath (Gold) / Carroll Dunham -- Stranger spaces / Lynne Tillman -- Two boys / Matthew Weinstein -- Laurie Simmons: facet and fashion / Andrianna Campbell -- A portrait of an artist: the films of Laurie Simmons / Omar Kholeif.
Summary:
Gender roles and identity, reality and its distortion, and the psychologically loaded myth of "normal life" are recurrent themes in Laurie Simmons's work. Taken chronologically, her career has followed a trajectory from miniature to full size, black-and-white to color, mechanical to human. Over more than four decades, the artist's authentic gaze has remained unflinching, whether she is composing tableaux of plastic figurines and props, or painting the eyelids of glamorous models and transforming them into doll-like humans with an unsettling stare. Her well-known series, such as "Walking and Lying Objects" and "The Instant Decorator," are featured here along with lesser-known series that explore underwater photography, self-portraiture, and a feature film starring Meryl Streep and a plastic dummy. In conjunction with an exhibition at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, this book includes an essay on Simmons's early iconic photographs, while other writings take closer looks at specific and more recent series. Renowned art historian and curator Michael Auping's interview with Simmons rounds out this book.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.