First published on 5 March 2018
In Conversation: Lorna Simpson and Thelma Golden
A conversation between the artist Lorna Simpson and Thelma Golden, Director and Chief Curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, on the occasion of the exhibition Lorna Simpson. Unanswerable, at Hauser & Wirth London, 1 March 2018.
Lorna Simpson was born in Brooklyn, where she continues to live and work. Simpson came to prominence in the 1980s through her pioneering approach to conceptual photography, which featured striking juxtapositions of text and staged images and raised questions about the nature of representation, identity, gender, race and history. Simpson has participated in numerous museum exhibitions and international projects such as the Hugo Boss Prize at the Guggenheim Museum, New York NY, Documenta 8 and 11, Kassel, Germany, and the 44th and 56th Venice Biennales. Lorna Simpson. Unanswerable is the artist’s inaugural presentation at Hauser & Wirth London and features work across three different media: painting, photographic collage and sculpture.
Thelma Golden is Director and Chief Curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem, the world’s leading institution devoted to visual art by artists of African descent. Her curatorial experience includes a decade at the Whitney Museum of American Art, during which time she organised numerous groundbreaking exhibitions, including Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in American Art, in 1994. Under her leadership since 2000, the Studio Museum has gained increased renown as a global leader in the exhibition of contemporary art, a centre for innovative education, and a cultural anchor in the Harlem community. Golden is an authority on contemporary art by artists of African descent and an active lecturer and panelist speaking about contemporary art and culture at national and international institutions.