‘Window displays are a ubiquitous and inescapable part of one's viewing life in the big city,’ says artist Diane Simpson. Her current exhibition ‘BMO Harris Bank Chicago Works: Diane Simpson’, on show at the MCA Chicago, is inspired by the first examples of visual merchandising in the early 20th century. For the four window displays – from her Window Dressing series – Simpson crafted stands, platforms, hangers and other display furniture, as well as clothing and accessories – a bowler hat, a pinafore – using patterns and shapes that evoke the art deco period she references. The exhibition also includes trade manuals from the 1920s and 30s that the artist used to research her sculptures.
Over the past 35 years, architecture, fashion and utilitarian design, and the points at which these practices intersect, have consistently inspired Simpson. Her first work with the Window Dressing displays was created for the Racine Art Museum, Wisconsin, aptly housed within a former department store; she has also previously installed them at storefronts at the NYU Broadway Windows (in 2014). In Chicago, four of her window tableaux appear in the city for the first time. Simpson says she’s less interested in the merchandise itself than the formal aspects of a window display and the backdrops that have been used throughout different periods in history. So what makes for a good window display? ‘I view a successful window display as one where the window dresser has succeeded in unifying the background of the display and the merchandise. This is always an important consideration in the way I display my sculpture. I strive for a real correlation between the sculpture and its environment.’
Simpson has been an integral part of the arts community in the Chicago area over the last three decades and has exhibited across many of its arts venues; but, she says, ‘The opportunity to show a major segment of my work at the MCA is sort of a pinnacle for me.’
For the four window displays – derived from her Window Dressing series – Simpson crafted stands, platforms, hangers and other display furniture, as well as clothing and accessories
A bowler hat, a pinafore and other patterns and shapes evoke the art deco period that Simpson references
The exhibition also includes trade manuals from the 1920s and 30s, that the artist used to research her sculptures
’Window displays are a ubiquitous and inescapable part of one’s viewing life in the big city,’ says the artist
Simpson says she’s less interested in the merchandise itself than the formal aspects of a window display and the backdrops that have been used throughout different periods in history
INFORMATION
‘BMO Harris Bank Chicago Works: Diane Simpson’ is on view until 3 July. For more information, visit MCA Chicago’s website
Photography: Nathan Keay
ADDRESS
MCA Chicago
220 E Chicago Avenue
Chicago, IL 60611
-
After the floods, Valencia’s design community unitesValencia's design community launches ‘Auction for Action’ and 'Interioristas en Acción' (IED), initiatives to raise money for those effected by the floods in Spain
-
In Helsinki, Pauline Curnier Jardin has created the grotesque amusement park of her dreamsFrench artist Pauline Curnier Jardin celebrates otherness at Kiasma, Helsinki’s Museum of Contemporary Art
-
A celestial New York exhibition showcases Roman and Williams’ mastery of lightingLauded design studio Roman and Williams is exhibiting 100 variations of its lighting ‘family tree’ inside a historic Tribeca space
-
Sabine Marcelis wins Wallpaper* Designer of the Year 2020Between fountains for Fendi, donut-shaped rugs, and a takeover of Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion, Dutch-Kiwi designer Sabine Marcelis has widened the spectrum of what light, glass and resin can do
-
Isamu Noguchi's unrealised playground design revealed in New York -
Idris Kahn, Annie Morris and Comme des Garçons create Yves Klein-inspired sculpture -
Damián Ortega’s raw structures have stacks of appealA solo exhibition of new sculptures and site-specific works at New York’s Gladstone Gallery continues the Mexican artist’s experiments with natural materials
-
Dozie Kanu designs a multi-discipline remix of Rimowa’s intelligent travel in Milan -
Never-before-exhibited watercolours by Steven Holl go on display in Milan -
Laufen celebrates its 125th anniversary with an unconventional sculpture show -
Glass act: a Venice exhibition reveals a never before seen side of Ettore Sottsass
