Laurie Simmons
Photo Credit: Steve Benisty
Laurie Simmons is a feminist icon and pioneer of the transgressive Pictures Generation, a group of creatives forged in the late ‘70s who made work that questioned our perceptions of ourselves and the world. From finger puppets and plastic dolls to ventriloquist dummies and toys, Simmons has used a variety of fringe props to conceptualize miniature universes that provoke questions on subjects like domesticity, sexuality, and stereotypes of American culture. Her recent work has shifted towards peering into personas, using real-life humans and adult children, Lena Dunham and Cyrus Dunham in a series of portraits. Although Simmons is always sowing the seeds of something, she’s now in the observing phase, mentally downloading this troubling and formative moment in history (like all of us). She is a visual trailblazer, a subversive thinker, and to top it off: a self-proclaimed balaboosta—all of which makes her so damn Dandy.
We’re living through an incredibly scary and overwhelming time. In my lifetime, I cannot recall anything of this magnitude affecting so many numbers of people globally. How are you holding up? Do you feel you’re more creative or less so?
I’m sure most people are reminded now of what really matters in life and what is essential. Humans are by nature social beings and to now have the most basic points of human interaction: schools, businesses, religious and family gatherings cancelled overnight is, in a word, shocking. I’m also in awe of the selflessness of our health providers on every level (including my sister, an ER doctor) and aghast at the lack of medical supplies and support provided for them.
It’s important to remember for years to come that the people getting us through this crisis are food delivery workers, the Post Office workers, grocery clerks, doctors and nurses. Those of us fortunate enough to stay home may or may not be working. Maybe your screen time is up 1000% to 24 hours a day. It’s important to be able to sit with the strangeness of this time and not feel compelled to produce content that attempts to explain it. I’m in the stop, look and listen phase.
A few film recommendations to get us through this quarantine:
I’m part of a women’s film group which is honestly more like a “life group.” We’ve been trading movie and TV recommendations like crazy. I’ve been loving documentaries and serial TV like Ozark, Unorthodox, The Plot Against America and Babylon Berlin. I have to say, I’m not a Tiger King fan because there are no redeeming characters in the whole story except the big cats. I have very low tolerance for morally bankrupt people.
Some documentary suggestions: Cheer, Free Solo, Planet Earth I & II, Leaving Neverland, Fyre, The Inventor, The Vietnam War and Country Music by Ken Burns, Miss Americana, Hillary, and 20 Feet From Stardom.
Top-of-mind artists you would recommend younger generations to explore:
I would actually ask younger generations to spend this time figuring out what kind of music and art they like to listen to and look at. When I ask my students that question, they seem confused by it. Perhaps generations now listen to playlists or Spotify radio more than dedicating their listening hours to certain genres or being devoted to bands the way we did from my generation up through Generation X. We’re a culture of listicles now. While I don’t mind that, I think it’s great if it starts you on your own personal search. As far as visual artists, if you start with Warhol, Jasper Johns, Cindy Sherman and Yayoi Kusama – just those names alone can take you on a path to hundreds of other interesting painters, sculptors, photographers and conceptual artists.
A societal myth or truth you are currently exploring or wish to:
I’m trying to spend more time supporting trans artists and younger trans individuals. Societal/cultural understanding of trans issues has improved, but we have so far to go in giving trans people the care and respect they need and deserve.
Has the surge of digital technology and all of its habitual and cultural consequences affected your work and how you conceptualize new projects:
As of 2014, most of the influences in my work actually come from online culture. I became obsessed with Youtube make-up tutorials and Japanese youth culture. I could spend hours going down some Youtube rabbit hole about cosplay or anime. I am absolutely fearless when it comes to the digital world and I’m annoyed by friends who are self-proclaimed luddites. My husband and kids ask me to help them with computer stuff (I take great pride in that). For better or worse, I’m more digitally engaged than many people my age. Honestly, I’m trying to read more books!
In my own work I used to shoot film and now I shoot digitally. The biggest impact this has had on my practice is allowing me to shoot a massive volume of images. I couldn’t afford to do that in film. I have thousands of options to edit now which is overwhelming, but also glorious and really fun.
Photo credit: Laurie Simmons, How We See/Ajak (Violet), 2014
You spent formative years in the Catskills. Have you been upstate in recent years to see how it has evolved or does its renaissance interest you:
Not recently, but this is a good time to plug your sister’s wonderful book The Borscht Belt. I lived in the Catskills in the ‘70s. I was in my early 20s and all the great hotels were then morphing into group homes for religious sects and cults. I had to drive an hour to find a book store, but every little town had a video rental shop. I lived on a farm with a bunch of friends. It wasn’t quite a commune, but we grew our own food and marijuana. My mother came to visit once and took me to the former Temple Inn, a place where she and her family used to go when she was a child. It was occupied at that time by a couple who looked like they came straight out of a Stephen King movie. They invited us in, so my mother walked right into the living room and sat down. I had no choice but to follow. I have to say, I gained a new respect for my mother’s sense of adventure.
Favorite Yiddish words/sayings:
I like the word mieskeit, because it seems like a gentle way to say someone is funny looking. I’ve realized during this crisis that I’m a balaboosta. That’s a word I’ve never cared for. There’s something onomatopoeically unappealing, but it’s a useful description.
Photo Credit: A.S. Landis, Wurtsboro. NY
Your work has been rife with plastics. The outer shine and the toxic underbelly. This can relate to society’s obsession with fame and the subsequent celebration and vilification of celebrities. Do you see this connection at all in your own work?
I often say that plastic is my marble in terms of materials. With proper light and space, it becomes alive for me. It’s also a refernce to my childhood and post-world war II America. It’s hard to remember, but at a certain point plastic was the great hope of the 20th century. Remember that famous line from The Graduate when a friend of Ben Braddock‘s (Dustin Hoffman) parents takes Ben aside at a party and says he has one word of advice for him—and the word is “plastics.” In the film, “plastics” is synonymous for a sterile, ugly, cheap, boring life—a symbol of the values of an older generation.
In my work, plastic has had more to do with objects and architecture than persona or fame. When I have explored persona, I’m more interested in the characters that ordinary people can take on, such as in my series How We See (dollars/ models who paint their eyelids to look like open eyes) or Kigurumi (cosplay characters) than in celebrity culture.
In a past life, you'd like to think you were:
In a recent past life, I was probably a home shopping network host. I can talk to you forever about a piece of clothing or a household item.
Your exploration of gender roles, and specifically the housewife was a theme in your early work. I'm curious if you have inherited any aspects of that archetype. Do you cook dinner? Does Carroll do the dishes?
My focus on the housewife in my early work was more architectural than archetypical, exploring the spaces in a typical 1950s house to evoke a certain American tableaux: here is the woman in her housedress in this TV room, here she is shot from the side, in a kitchen, here is an aerial view of her, in a bathroom. Gender roles in that early work were present, but very oblique. I never felt my mother had a raw deal compared to my father (who by the way worked at home). A lot of my work was based on memories of the kind of idealized world where the look of my own suburban upbringing merged with TV and advertising of the time.
I married a feminist (of course) and the idea of "housewife” doesn’t mean much to either of us. I cook a lot because I enjoy it—particularly now—making care packages for friends who are sick has become important to me. My husband Carroll Dunham is a master dish washer and cleaner-upper. He also mops (my least-favorite job).
Cultural conversations on a mass scale have become increasingly devoid of nuance in some ways due to the character count on Twitter and news headlines. Have you noticed that shift play out in the art world?
Some people are very clever and nuanced on Twitter. I’m not sure if any of them are part of the art world.
What you're most nostalgic for:
Trying on shoes in a store where they would measure your foot with a steel ruler and then bring out several sizes, along with other styles you might like. I miss shoe salespeople.
You do know your lipstick. Please share your favorites:
The best lipstick company now is Kosas, which was created by a young woman who used to be a painter and has mixed a group of about 8 shades. Because she has an artist’s understanding of color, she knows you don’t need 100 tubes of lipstick. You only need a max of 8, but probably more like 4.
Photo Credit: Laurie Simmons, Pushing Lipstick, 1979
Any books or music you're exploring right now:
I’m finally getting to explore classical music—something I promised myself I’d do. So many orchestras are offering free concerts. I accidentally stumbled on the Berliner Philomoniker and they are offering free concerts from their archive. I’m stuck on Mahlers 5th and finding different performances of that. I also found a Stephen Sondheim TV musical from 1966 called Evening Primrose. It aired on ABC’s Stage 67. It’s a nutty story about a poet who disappears into a secret life in a department store where he finds a community of people who had the same idea and already live there. It’s bonkers.
Advice you might give to anyone experiencing imposter syndrome:
Keep making your work, even (and especially) when it feels like no one is watching.
How you decompress in times of high-anxiety, like now:
I take really long walks with my collie, Penny. Dogs and babies are only in the moment. It’s very refreshing. We are sheltering a family in an apartment in our barn. They have a 10-month-old baby named Dale we call #thebabyinthebarn. Just the sight of her can change my mood.
If you were an artist in your 20s, you would be living here:
No question: Los Angeles. The energy of the young artists there feels very familiar to me. Like NYC in the ‘70s.
Your vices:
Really strong coffee, black licorice, and pizza. Pizza is the perfect food.