About this artwork
Lorna Simpson first became known in the 1980s for work that confronted race, gender, and history. Employing the African American woman as a visual point of departure, she combined large-scale, multi-panel photographs with affixed text in order to put text and image into a poetic confrontation. In Outline, the photographs—a woman with no face, an isolated rope of braided hair—make reference to anthropological studies of Africans whose subjects were stereotypically portrayed in terms of isolated physical features. Simpson provides a voice in the form of text fragments, which join to form new words—”backlash” and “back pay,” for example—that evoke historic and contemporary forms of exploitation.
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Status
- Currently Off View
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Department
- Photography and Media
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Artist
- Lorna Simpson
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Title
- Outline
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Place
- United States (Artist's nationality:)
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Date
- Made 1990
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Medium
- Gelatin silver prints with applied plastic plaques
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Dimensions
- Braid: 30 × 53 cm (11 13/16 × 20 7/8 in.); Back: 121 × 101 cm (47 11/16 × 39 13/16 in.)
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Credit Line
- Gift of Boardroom, Inc.
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Reference Number
- 1992.601a-b
Extended information about this artwork
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.
