Description:
Visual description: This horizontal black and white photograph diptych consists of two rectangular panels side by side. The left panel shows a white plate against a black background, with text reading "NOT GOOD ENOUGH" printed in the middle of it. The right panel shows a portion of a Black woman’s body, with a fragment of white, scalloped-edged clothing visible. Only the woman’s lips and chin are visible, and the words "BUT GOOD ENOUGH TO SERVE" are printed between her collarbones. The panels are set within a light gray border or frame surrounding the entire image.
Label Text:
Lorna Simpson uses photographs and texts to create works that challenge her viewers and often do not conform to closed meanings. In a 1990 interview Simpson explained her approach to her photography: “I started to concentrate more upon how the viewer looks at photographic images. I took elements from my own documentary work and abstracted particular qualities, putting them into very stark environments—meaning, perhaps, the way a person stands or a particular gesture—but leaving the photographic subject blank or not permitting the photographic subject’s face to appear. That way, all the information or clues that point to a particular individual were eliminated from the image. From there, I would insert my own text or my own specific reading of the image to give the viewer something they might not interpret or surmise, due to their ‘educated’ way of looking at images, and reading them for their emotional, psychological, and/or sociological values. So, I would start to interject these things that the photograph would not speak of and that I felt needed to be revealed, but that couldn’t be absorbed from just looking at an image.”
Tags:
shadows; African American; plates; women; social commentary; social realism; text Subjects:
African American art; Shades and shadows; text (layout feature); Women; Photographic gelatin Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=AC+2017.45 |
