In the 1970s, Laurie Simmons made ends meet as an artist by working as a photographer for a dollhouse miniature company. There she began to photograph the dolls and toys for her own work, unpacking gender relationships, the domestic ideal of the 1950s, and the myth of the American dream in tiny, staged scenes.
‘I was simply trying to recreate a feeling or mood from the time I was growing up,’ Simmons said in a statement, ‘a sense of the 1950s that I knew was both beautiful and lethal at the same time.’ The series, which went on to form Early Black & White (1976-78), serves as the namesake for ‘Laurie Simmons: Big Camera/Little Camera’, a major survey of the the former Wallpaper* Guest Editor’s work at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in Texas.
Big Camera/Little Camera, 1976, by Laurie Simmons, gelatin silver print.
The eponymous image, Big Camera/Little Camera (1976), depicts a small toy camera next to one given to Simmons by her father: ‘I put the two cameras together for scale, and as a metaphor – real life versus fiction. It was also a statement about what I intended to do with the camera.’
The retrospective spans four decades of work by Simmons, including her renowned series Walking & Lying Objects (1987-1991), in which the artist began to work with larger, fantastical props; The Love Doll, (2009-11), centring on luxury life-size Japanese dolls; and How We See (2015), where young women seemingly stare out at us through closed eyes, painted like those of dolls.
Together, the bodies of work on view at the Tadao Ando-designed museum trace her career-long fascination of gender roles, with these themes moving to the forefront of the cultural conversation in 2018. The show includes screenings of two video works, The Music of Regret (2006), featuring Meryl Streep, and My Art (2016) – written and directed by, and starring Simmons – a feature-length film about a New York artist’s relationship to her work, Simmons herself becoming the performer of an identity, the artist, the object.
Installation view of Simmons’ 2015 series How We See at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.
How We See/Edie (Green), 2015, by Laurie Simmons, pigment print.
Rooftop, 1984, by Laurie Simmons, pigment print.
From left, Walking Gun, 1991, gelatin silver print; Walking Purse, 1989, dye destruction print; and Walking Cake II (Color), 1989, pigment print, by Laurie Simmons.
Walking House, 1989, by Laurie Simmons, pigment print.
Woman Opening Refrigerator/Milk to the Right, 1979, by Laurie Simmons, Cibachrome print.
2017: The Mess, 2017, by Laurie Simmons, pigment print.
INFORMATION
‘Laurie Simmons: Big Camera/Little Camera’ is on view until 27 January 2019. The exhibition will then travel tp the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, where it will run from 2 Ferbruary – 5 May 2019. For more information, visit the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth website
ADDRESS
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
3200 Darnell Street
Fort Worth
Texas
-
Jack White's Third Man Records opens a Paris pop-upJack White's immaculately-branded record store will set up shop in the 9th arrondissement this weekend
-
Designer Marta de la Rica’s elegant Madrid studio is full of perfectly-pitched contradictionsThe studio, or ‘the laboratory’ as de la Rica and her team call it, plays with colour, texture and scale in eminently rewarding ways
-
‘Nothing just because it’s beautiful’: Performance artist Marina Abramović on turning her hand to furniture designMarina Abramović has no qualms about describing her segue into design as a ‘domestication’. But, argues the ‘grandmother of performance art’ as she unveils a collection of chairs, something doesn’t have to be provocative to be meaningful
-
In ‘The Last Showgirl’, nostalgia is a drug like any otherGia Coppola takes us to Las Vegas after the party has ended in new film starring Pamela Anderson, The Last Showgirl
-
‘American Photography’: centuries-spanning show reveals timely truthsAt the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Europe’s first major survey of American photography reveals the contradictions and complexities that have long defined this world superpower
-
Miami’s new Museum of Sex is a beacon of open discourseThe Miami outpost of the cult New York destination opened last year, and continues its legacy of presenting and celebrating human sexuality
-
Sundance Film Festival 2025: The films we can't wait to watchSundance Film Festival, which runs 23 January - 2 February, has long been considered a hub of cinematic innovation. These are the ones to watch from this year’s premieres
-
What is RedNote? Inside the social media app drawing American users ahead of the US TikTok banDownloads of the Chinese-owned platform have spiked as US users look for an alternative to TikTok, which faces a ban on national security grounds. What is Rednote, and what are the implications of its ascent?
-
Architecture and the new world: The Brutalist reframes the American dreamBrady Corbet’s third feature film, The Brutalist, demonstrates how violence is a building block for ideology
-
‘Gas Tank City’, a new monograph by Andrew Holmes, is a photorealist eye on the American West‘Gas Tank City’ chronicles the artist’s journey across truck-stop America, creating meticulous drawings of fleeting moments
-
Intimacy, violence and the uncanny: Joanna Piotrowska in PhiladelphiaArtist and photographer Joanna Piotrowska stages surreal scenes at the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania
