FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

November 2, 2016 

Fort Worth, TX

 

Kendal Smith Lake
Manager of Communications
817.840.2167
kendal@themodern.org
www.themodern.org
 
The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth Presents

FOCUS: Lorna Simpson  

November 19, 2016 - January 15, 2017   

 

The FOCUS series is organized by the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth for the Director's Council, a group that supports acquisitions at the Museum. The series features three solo exhibitions annually, organized by Assistant Curator Alison Hearst. FOCUS exhibitions are open to the public and are included in general museum admission: $10 for adults; $4 for seniors (60+) and students with identification; free for children 12 and under; free for Modern members. 
 
Since the beginning of her career in the mid-1980s, Lorna Simpson has become known for her conceptual photographs and videos that question the nature of representation, and challenge historical and preconceived views of racial and sexual identity. Rooted in her longstanding interest in photography and photographic collage, Simpson's recent paintings incorporate found imagery, often taken from AP photographs and vintage magazines, which the artist overpaints and divides across several panels. These paintings continue to investigate identity, while also confronting current events both public and private. FOCUS: Lorna Simpson is the first museum exhibition to feature the artist's acrylic, ink, and silkscreened paintings.
 
One motif featured consistently throughout the all-new works created for FOCUS: Lorna Simpson is photographs of women taken from issues of Ebony magazine from the 1950s to 1970s. On Ebony, Simpson states, "For me, the images hearken back to my childhood, but are also a lens through which to see the past fifty years in American history." For this exhibition, the Ebony images are collaged with dissimilar Associated Press photos featuring natural elements, such as fire, water, and ice, which often signal disaster and upheaval (either natural or manmade), as seen in her largest works to date, Famous Statue Damn and Famous Statue Volcano [both 2016]. These two paintings have a mirrored foreground image that features a woman's head from a wig ad placed on a nude female sculpture; however, the works have disparate backgrounds - one illustrates an overflowing dam, while the other depicts a smoking volcano. Taken out of their original editorial or advertising contexts, the images are combined and abstracted to create new meaning. Famous Statue Damn suggests the recent floods in Haiti, and the smoke cloud in Famous Statue Volcano connects to the plumes from riots following police brutality past and present that Simpson has more explicitly illustrated in other related works from this year.
 
Another series in the exhibition features close-ups of the heads of women from wig ads in Ebony magazine. In place of their hair are spiky ice formations, as seen in Head on Ice #2, 2016. Ice repeats in several of the works and is symbolic of endurance. As Simpson states, "It's like this notion of the persistence needed for living under ice - one cannot survive in the cold, but then, don't we live in intolerable, impossible political times and expect to survive?"
 
Lorna Simpson was born in Brooklyn, where she continues to live and work. She received a BFA in photography from the School of Visual Arts, New York, and an MFA in visual arts from the University of California, San Diego. Simpson has exhibited extensively, both nationally and internationally, including recent solo exhibitions at the Jeu de Paume, Paris; Brooklyn Museum; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Simpson has participated in distinguished international exhibitions such as Documenta 8 and 11, Kassel, Germany, and the 44th and 56th Venice Biennales; in 1990, she was the first African-American woman to exhibit work in the Venice Biennale.

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The Tuesday Evenings at the Modern lecture series will feature Lorna Simpson on November 15 at 7 pm in the museum's auditorium.
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The Director's Council
The Director's Council was formed in 1985 and supports the Modern with an annual acquisition for the permanent collection. The Director's Council sponsors the FOCUS series, which presents three solo exhibitions organized each year. Each exhibition opens with an exclusive cocktail reception for the Council, giving the members an opportunity to meet the featured artist and discuss his or her work. One piece by each artist is chosen by the Museum director and curator to be part of the final selection voted on at the Council's Purchase Meeting each May. This format provides members with an in-depth understanding of the Modern's acquisitions process and offers a spirited and popular series of events. The annual dues, $600, include all the benefits of a an Associate/Family membership and invitations to exclusive Director's Council events.
LOCATION
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
3200 Darnell Street
Fort Worth, Texas 76107
Telephone 817.738.9215
Toll-Free 1.866.824.5566
Fax 817.735.1161
www.themodern.org
 
Museum Gallery Hours
Tue 10 am-7 pm (Feb-Apr, Jun-Jul, Sep-Nov)
Tue-Sun 10 am-5 pm
Fri 10 am-8 pm
 
General Admission Prices (includes special exhibitions)
$4 for students with ID and seniors (60+)
$10 for adults (13+)
Free for children 12 and under
Free for Modern members
Free every Sunday and half-price every Wednesday.
 
CAFÉ MODERN
Lunch
Tue-Fri 11 am-2:30 pm
Brunch
Sat-Sun 10 am-3 pm
Dinner
Fri 5 pm-8:30 pm
Coffee, snacks, and dessert 10 am-4:30 pm

 
The Modern is closed Mondays and holidays, including New Year's Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, and Christmas.   
 
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