Laurie Simmons and Carroll Dunham

Our so-called “pillow talk” is so much about what we do. Not the specifics of how we make our work or what happened in the studio today as much as what it’s like to move your work from your mind to the studio to the world and, like, what exactly are we doing being artists in the 21st century? Laurie Simmons, interview with Sheila Heti for Interview magazine, March 4, 2014

Artists Laurie Simmons and Carroll Dunham, both represented in the Modern’s collection, are in conversation for this extraordinary Tuesday Evenings presentation in conjunction with the museum’s survey Laurie Simmons: Big Camera Little Camera. Simmons and Dunham, two celebrated artists in today’s art world, discuss the role art plays in their life as wife and husband and how a life together informs their art. Having concurrent solo shows in New York last spring, Simmons at Salon 94 and Mary Boone Gallery and Dunham at Gladstone Gallery, the couple gave an extensive and enlightening interview for Artnet News in which Simmons recalls a lecture, similar to this one, eight years ago wherein the couple compared images from different stages of their work and, somewhat surprisingly, found just “how much of an unconscious dialogue there was…”

As Dunham lays out in his text for the Big Camera/Little Camera catalogue, “Laurie Simmons and I have been a couple for forty years, married for thirty-five. ‘Partners,’ the current term of art for such an arrangement, actually applies to us, as we have raised two children and conducted two separate but parallel art practices while both living and being together.” There is a lot of history and a lot to be learned from two artists who are gracious enough to share their work and experiences as independent artists who have made a special life together.

Image: Laurie Simmons, Walking House, 1989 / Carroll Dunham, Studies for Horse and Rider (My X),2012-15

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Tickets

This popular series of lectures and presentations by artists, architects, historians, and critics is free and open to the public each Tuesday from September 4 through November 13, excluding September 18 and November 6. Visit www.themodern.org/programs/lectures for more information on each talk.

Lectures begin at 7 pm in the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth's auditorium. Seating begins at 6:30 pm and is limited to 250; a live broadcast of the presentations is shown in Café Modern for any additional guests.

(*The American Institute of Architecture lecture on October 23 will have an alternative schedule. A reception will be held in the Grand Lobby at 5:30 pm, the lecture begins at 6 pm, and award announcements are at 6:45 pm.)

A limited number of tickets (limit two per person) will be available for purchase ($5) from 10 am until 4 pm the day of the lecture online at www.themodern.org/programs/lectures. Free admission tickets (limit two per person) are available at the Modern's information desk beginning at 5 pm on the day of the lecture. The museum galleries remain open until 7 pm on Tuesdays during the series (general admission applies). 

Café Modern serves cocktails and appetizers until 7 pm on Tuesday nights during the lecture series.   

Revisit the insightful lectures from Tuesday Evenings or discover new ways to look at works in the Museum's collection with the Modern Podcasts. Hear artists speak about their work or listen to curators' perspectives and discussions at www.themodern.org/podcasts.