Skarstedt Gallery is pleased to announce the exhibition Color Coordinated Interiors, by Laurie Simmons. In this body of work from 1983, Laurie Simmons explores her attraction to interior design and cinematic process by using rear screen projections of chromatically themed interiors and Japanese designed American “Teenette” dolls to create photographs where color and two-dimensional planes form a functional world. These idealized statuettes, standing only three inches tall, are specifically lit to allow them to enter the 2-D space, reminding us that artistic devices are employed.
At first glance, the rooms come alive as the dolls seem to converse and mingle with one another. But beyond the character stories lies Simmons’s primary focus of interaction and assimilation between the interior and doll, and most specifically, the success of the figure’s integration in the room. And so, all narrative aside, a sense of conformity prevails.
A “how to” interior design book from the 1940’s used by Simmons for research states, “Color is a powerful tool at your disposal…Misused, color will mock all your efforts. Your home then will be uninteresting and drab.” We see yellow girls in yellow rooms, blue girls in blue rooms and so on. They blend with their unilaterally colored backgrounds, fitting in like part of a fastidiously planned decor. Across the timeline of the background photographs (1960’s-1980’s), there is a consistency of intention despite superficial differences. Everything is in it’s place and everything matches, confirming the notion that nature abhors a vacuum.
Born in Long Island, NY, Simmons lives and works in New York City. She graduated with a BFA from the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia and has since been the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Grant (1984), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1997), and the Roy Lichtenstein Residency in Visual Arts at The American Academy in Rome (2005). Her recent film “The Music of Regret” premiered at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in May 2006 and has since screened at the Tate Modern, the Centre Pompidou, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Hammer Museum, The Walker Center, and can be seen at the Parrish Art Museum on August 19th and the Reine Sofia in Madrid in October. Other examples of her work can be found in internationally recognized museum collections including: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C; The Hara Museum, Tokyo.
This exhibition is produced in collaboration with Sperone Westwater, New York. A fully illustrated catalogue will be published in conjunction with the exhibition.
At first glance, the rooms come alive as the dolls seem to converse and mingle with one another. But beyond the character stories lies Simmons’s primary focus of interaction and assimilation between the interior and doll, and most specifically, the success of the figure’s integration in the room. And so, all narrative aside, a sense of conformity prevails.
A “how to” interior design book from the 1940’s used by Simmons for research states, “Color is a powerful tool at your disposal…Misused, color will mock all your efforts. Your home then will be uninteresting and drab.” We see yellow girls in yellow rooms, blue girls in blue rooms and so on. They blend with their unilaterally colored backgrounds, fitting in like part of a fastidiously planned decor. Across the timeline of the background photographs (1960’s-1980’s), there is a consistency of intention despite superficial differences. Everything is in it’s place and everything matches, confirming the notion that nature abhors a vacuum.
Born in Long Island, NY, Simmons lives and works in New York City. She graduated with a BFA from the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia and has since been the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Grant (1984), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1997), and the Roy Lichtenstein Residency in Visual Arts at The American Academy in Rome (2005). Her recent film “The Music of Regret” premiered at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in May 2006 and has since screened at the Tate Modern, the Centre Pompidou, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Hammer Museum, The Walker Center, and can be seen at the Parrish Art Museum on August 19th and the Reine Sofia in Madrid in October. Other examples of her work can be found in internationally recognized museum collections including: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C; The Hara Museum, Tokyo.
This exhibition is produced in collaboration with Sperone Westwater, New York. A fully illustrated catalogue will be published in conjunction with the exhibition.