Purple ARCHIVES: NOSTALGIC DELUSIONS OF SIMPLER TIMES IN LORNA SIMPSON’S PIN UP PHOTOGRAPHY⁠

Details from the 1957/2009 Project, 2009, courtesy of the artist and Salon 94

interview by BILL POWERS 

 

LORNA SIMPSON’S NEW SERIES features pin-up girls. On the surface, the images may owe a debt to Cindy Sherman’s film stills, but like the best of Kara Walker’s work, they harken back to what we imagine was a “simpler time,” even as we concede the retrofitting necessary for such nostalgic delusions. The series debuted at the Frieze Art Fair in London last October and every one of the pictures was sold. I’m told that a number of them were snatched up by The Walker Art Center and MoMA.

BILL POWERS — I normally think of your work as heady and conceptual, but these pictures are so playful and sexy. What brought all this on?
LORNA SIMPSON — A couple of years ago I made a…