Lorna Simpson

30 September 2023 – 25 January 2024

Zurich, Limmatstrasse

This fall, the renowned US artist Lorna Simpson debuts new work from her ongoing Special Character series at our Zurich gallery, marking the artist’s first solo exhibition with the gallery in Switzerland.

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EXPLORE THE EXHIBITION

First unveiled in 2019, the Special Character series superimposes women’s faces from fashion and wig ads found in the pages of Ebony magazine, revealing through repetition the reinforcement of stereotypes in the everyday imagery we consume. In these works, silkscreened images of isolated figures emerge from layered washes of paint, highlighting Simpson’s continual investigation of the relationship between parts and wholes, and the nature of representation, identity, gender and race.

Captivated by imagery from different time periods, the Special Character series began after Simpson found copies of Ebony magazines from the 1950s to 1970s that belonged to her grandmother. Ebony magazine embodies African American thought and point of view, notable for documenting lifestyle, culture, and politics and issues otherwise unrepresented by mainstream media.

By repurposing and reconfiguring found images—a signature source in her work—Simpson creates her own highly distinctive visual terrain that offers a potent response to American life.

‘As an artist gravitating towards advertising and images of women—from very small wig ads or hair product ads, to large-scale national ads—advertisements chronicle periods of time in terms of politics and expressions of self-determination.’—Lorna Simpson

For or by the eyes

2023

As far as possible

2023

NYC Story

2023

The striking gazes in Simpson’s amalgamated portraits exude a power in looking, in representation and in visibility. Though their glances invite us to look, we are separated by the layers of pigment and by the time periods that define them.

In works such as ‘Third Person’ and ‘Z’ (2023), several versions of the same face can be discerned – the considered selection and placement of the found images in these large-scale, silk-screen works are juxtaposed with the spontaneous nature of the ink that is layered on top, forming uncanny, dreamlike portraits. The layered fragments of the figures morph, fuse and shift before the viewer’s eyes, settling into a composite female face accentuated with fluorescent pink or orange pigment whose direct gaze meets the viewer.

2023

Blue Tulip

2023

Third Person

2023

In works such ‘As far as possible’ (2023) and ‘NYC Story’ (2023), the face becomes simultaneously present and partially obscured, exploring the duality of these spliced personas and the interruption between their physical appearance and their inner psyche—refracted and amplified by the additional external layer of the viewer’s own contemplation.

Night Fall

2023

Through unexpected reconfigurations of visual culture, the artist continues to develop her distinctive language of the found image as a source, encouraging new narratives to emerge from unexpected origins. Over double the size of the other works, Simpson liberates the subject in ‘Night Fall’ (2023) from its history by placing her in a new, otherworldly context. The azure pigment, glowing with an ethereal luminescence, cascades from the figure into a bright pool, demonstrating the artist’s mastery of ink and paint.

Simpson’s new work continues to immerse viewers in the characteristic paradoxes of her praxis, weaving dichotomies of figuration and abstraction, past and present, destruction and creation into the fabric of her oeuvre.

‘Lorna Simpson x Gaelle Choisne’ at Reiffers Art Initiative, Paris

The exhibition in Zurich will coincide with ‘Lorna Simpson x Gaelle Choisne’ at Reiffers Art Initiative, Paris, part of their 2023 mentorship exhibition program.

On view at Zurich, Limmatstrasse

‘Lorna Simpson’ is on view now through 25 January 2024 at Hauser & Wirth Zurich, Limmatstrasse. Please visit our location page to plan your visit.

About the Artist

Lorna Simpson

Born in Brooklyn, Lorna Simpson came to prominence in the 1990s with her pioneering approach to conceptual photography. Simpson’s early work—particularly her striking juxtapositions of text and staged images—raised questions about the nature of representation, identity, gender, race and history that continue to drive the artist’s expanding and multi-disciplinary practice today. She deftly explores the medium’s umbilical relation to memory and history, both central themes within her work.

Studying on the West Coast in the mid-1980s, Simpson was part of a generation of artists who utilized conceptual approaches to undermine the credibility and apparent neutrality of language and images. Her most iconic works from this period depict African-American figures as seen only from behind or in fragments. Photographed in a neutral studio space, the figures are tied neither to a specific place nor time. Drawing upon a long-standing interest in poetry and literature, the artist accompanies these images with her own fragmented text, which is at times infused with the suggestion of violence or trauma. The incredibly powerful works entangle viewers into an equivocal web of meaning, with what is unseen and left unsaid as important as that which the artist does disclose. Seemingly straightforward, these works are in fact near-enigmas, as complex as the subject matter they take on.

Over the past 30 years, Simpson has continued to probe these questions while expanding her practice to encompass various media including film and video, painting, drawing and sculpture. Her recent works incorporate appropriated imagery from vintage Jet and Ebony magazines, found photo booth images, and discarded Associated Press photos of natural elements—particularly ice, a motif that appears in her sculptural work in the form of glistening ‘ice’ blocks made of glass. The new work continues to immerse viewers in layers of bewitching paradoxes, threading dichotomies of figuration and abstraction, past and present, destruction and creation, and male and female. Layered and multivalent, Simpson’s practice deploys metaphor, metonymy, and formal prowess to offer a potent response to American life today.

Learn more about this artist