For Immediate Release
Laurie Simmons
Photographs 1978/79
Interior & Big Figures
May 3 – June 29, 2002
Skarstedt Fine Art is pleased to announce the opening of Photographs 1978/79 – Interiors & Big Figures by Laurie Simmons. This exhibition will present the first color photographs made by Simmons.
These two series of photographs consist of constructed interiors and manipulated exteriors. Within these constructed worlds/realms, Simmons explores the boundaries of reality and fantasy, and of nostalgic memories and idealisms. There are no greater iconic images to depict a post World War II, 1950s, suburbia than housewives and cowboys. In a time when television became the most influential form of mass media, female and male identities were formulated and perpetuated through commercials, advertisements, and movies.
In a 1992 interview with Sarah Charlesworth, Simmons stated that she was, “not trying to make a statement about women’s lives, but trying to recreate a feeling, a mood from the time that I was growing up: a sense of the fifties that I knew was both beautiful and lethal at the same time.” While the plastic dolls provide the viewer with a sense of play, the reality of the images is unavoidable. The female is pictured in the home, but she is alone, isolated, and vulnerable; not even her children are present to witness her labors. The cowboy, however, exudes the confidence and independence of a life of adventure, yet the cowboy can not escape the implied violence, racism and paternalism that characterize the ideal.
Laurie Simmons was born on October 3, 1949 in Long Island, New York. Simmons received a BFA from the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia and has been exhibiting in United States and Europe since 1979 including a museum survey titled “The Music of Regret,” at the Baltimore Museum of Art in 1997.
For further information, please contact +1 212 737 2060 or info@skarstedt.com
Laurie Simmons
Photographs 1978/79
Interior & Big Figures
May 3 – June 29, 2002
Skarstedt Fine Art is pleased to announce the opening of Photographs 1978/79 – Interiors & Big Figures by Laurie Simmons. This exhibition will present the first color photographs made by Simmons.
These two series of photographs consist of constructed interiors and manipulated exteriors. Within these constructed worlds/realms, Simmons explores the boundaries of reality and fantasy, and of nostalgic memories and idealisms. There are no greater iconic images to depict a post World War II, 1950s, suburbia than housewives and cowboys. In a time when television became the most influential form of mass media, female and male identities were formulated and perpetuated through commercials, advertisements, and movies.
In a 1992 interview with Sarah Charlesworth, Simmons stated that she was, “not trying to make a statement about women’s lives, but trying to recreate a feeling, a mood from the time that I was growing up: a sense of the fifties that I knew was both beautiful and lethal at the same time.” While the plastic dolls provide the viewer with a sense of play, the reality of the images is unavoidable. The female is pictured in the home, but she is alone, isolated, and vulnerable; not even her children are present to witness her labors. The cowboy, however, exudes the confidence and independence of a life of adventure, yet the cowboy can not escape the implied violence, racism and paternalism that characterize the ideal.
Laurie Simmons was born on October 3, 1949 in Long Island, New York. Simmons received a BFA from the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia and has been exhibiting in United States and Europe since 1979 including a museum survey titled “The Music of Regret,” at the Baltimore Museum of Art in 1997.
For further information, please contact +1 212 737 2060 or info@skarstedt.com