So what kind of influence does identity have on an artist? In what ways do you think Lorna Simpson's gender, race, social class, or sexual orientation would have an effect on her work?

I think she admires the diversity of New York and feels comfortable in her own skin asking questions about the events in the city including sports and fashion. She seems comfortable with her diversity amongst those in Brooklyn. She has her own interpretation of her experience in the city which seems to change as she allows the process of her art to work itself out. The end product is of no real importance to her as long as she is 'allowed' to question her life in New York City and allow that to open new dialogues within herself and the public. She is influenced by the Ebony magazines, the African American basketball players but her 'Five Day Forecast' exhibition is revealing to her thoughts of being a 'mis' in the course of one week, such as misunderstood, misgauged, mistranslated and misconstrued. These a 'mis' would include all of the issues in gender, race, social class and sexuality.

What is silcrean onfalt (at 01:35)? Is it a type of magazine?

Silk screen is a kind of printing process, felt is the fabric that the image is printed on.

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Course: Tate > Unit 3

Lesson 3: Women as Artists

Art and identity in the work of Lorna Simpson

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This video brought to you by Tate.org.uk

Everything from old sports photographs to hair commercials provide inspiration for American artist Lorna Simpson. She uses combinations of image and text to examine the processes through which meaning and understanding take place. References from popular culture, music, sports, entertainment, and the art world all find their way into her pieces, often speaking of her experience as a black woman artist. In this video, Simpson shows us how she arrived at this methodology and why the things that surround here are so important to her work.

What kind of influence does identity have on an artist? In what ways do you think her gender, race, social class, or sexual orientation would have an effect on her work?

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Camille @ Tate
Posted 9 years ago. Direct link to Camille @ Tate's post “So what kind of influence...”
So what kind of influence does identity have on an artist? In what ways do you think Lorna Simpson's gender, race, social class, or sexual orientation would have an effect on her work?
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(7 votes)
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- Melodie Ebner-Joerges
  Posted 9 years ago. Direct link to Melodie Ebner-Joerges's post “I think she admires the d...”
  I think she admires the diversity of New York and feels comfortable in her own skin asking questions about the events in the city including sports and fashion. She seems comfortable with her diversity amongst those in Brooklyn. She has her own interpretation of her experience in the city which seems to change as she allows the process of her art to work itself out. The end product is of no real importance to her as long as she is 'allowed' to question her life in New York City and allow that to open new dialogues within herself and the public. She is influenced by the Ebony magazines, the African American basketball players but her 'Five Day Forecast' exhibition is revealing to her thoughts of being a 'mis' in the course of one week, such as misunderstood, misgauged, mistranslated and misconstrued. These a 'mis' would include all of the issues in gender, race, social class and sexuality.
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  (3 votes)
Madeliv
Posted 9 years ago. Direct link to Madeliv's post “What is silcrean onfalt (...”
What is silcrean onfalt (at
01:35
)? Is it a type of magazine?
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(2 votes)
Answer
- lilyhallbutcher.student
  Posted 9 years ago. Direct link to lilyhallbutcher.student's post “Silk screen is a kind of ...”
  Silk screen is a kind of printing process, felt is the fabric that the image is printed on.
  Comment on lilyhallbutcher.student's post “Silk screen is a kind of ...”
  (5 votes)
Harriet Buchanan
Posted 6 years ago. Direct link to Harriet Buchanan's post “Why is it that in this vi...”
Why is it that in this video (as in so many others) the narration becomes all-important, leaving the art works to flow past without giving enough time to each work? Maybe it's just me, but I'm completely unable to relate what is being said to the art shown. The art pieces move by so fast that there's no possibility of connecting them to what is being said.
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Video transcript

I love New York and I love Brooklyn particularly. I just like the vibe of it, I like the intensity, I like that it's open all hours of the night. It's a great place to live because of its diversity, I mean it's a very international city. Popular culture, music, sports entertainment, the art world I think all of it for me is of an influence, beckoning me to steal or admire. The work takes these different genres and goes through them but there's a thread there so you say the same thing in many different ways over the course of one's life. Everything that I would choose to do comes from the same sort of impetus the same sort of desire. I have a bunch of Ebony magazines, actually, that were my grandmother’s. One day I was just looking through them and, I don’t know, I just came up with the idea of making collages with them and then started collecting them and finding them. A lot of the ads from that period were before and after shots, so they're very funny because the women don’t look like before and after, like they needed make-up or improvement it's more like their attitude changes in some kind of weird way. So even this piece here it's on a silkscreen on felt piece, and it too is a before and after shot it's a kind of beauty ad. 'Five Day Forecast' was done at a time where I had secretarial jobs and all these different kind of receptionist jobs to help support myself as an artist and the different experiences of being in different work environments influenced the work. So 'Five Day Forecast' is the events or forecasting what could happen within one's week. Really it’s about being inspired by something and looking at it and saying to myself what would make the piece interesting? or, what would be an interesting conceptual approach to a particular idea? Sometimes the answer to that is something completely that I've never done before. I just have to succumb to that and go, okay, so now I'm going to do drawings? Great, I don’t really draw but we’ll try that. More recently I've been doing stuff on analogue photography in the ’30s to about the ’70s of basketball players. Different images that have crop marks for reproduction in a newspaper. I just think all these different kinds of marks are really beautiful. You know, it's all risk at the end of the day. I am never sure that a piece works. I mean, I think my relationship to process is such that if the process of making it and thinking about it is interesting and challenging then that’s 90 per cent of the way and that the end product, well then, that’s whatever it is.