Social Criticism in Laurie Simmons Early Color Interiors

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Recommended: Feminist art 20th century

The Pictures generation of artists in the 1970s and 80s was marked by a rejection of the legacy of the male-dominated world of painting by a new generation of artists working with photography, video and performance art. The desire to find a new aesthetic that suited the changing culture of the U.S. led many artists to express themselves using the immediate nature of photography. The most influential members of this group were women concerned with questioning conventional representations of gender in the media and film. Laurie Simmons’ early photography was an exploration of societal expectations about women’s roles. Her Early Color Interiors photographs (1978-79) critiqued conventional representations of women in domestic spaces. Her photographs of kitchen scenes are especially representative of the myriad of influences that informed the work the Pictures generation, most notably from feminism and post-conceptualism.

Although their work initially received a critical reception, Simmons and other members of the Pictures generation are now recognized for their sophisticated imagery that asks viewers to question the truthfulness of the photographic image. In this paper, I will compare interviews with Simmons regarding her intent with visual and literary influences at that time. I will demonstrate that although Simmons did not want to label her work as feminist, she played a major role in redefining the aesthetic of feminist art without completely turning her back on the aesthetics and accomplishments of the earlier generation. I will compare Simmons’ work and the work of other feminist artists to the social criticism of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique in order to determine their relationship to the essential ideas for the se...

... middle of paper ...

... Nancy Princenthal, Sue Scott, After the Revolution, women who transformed contemporary art., p.18-19

Kirsten Matthews, Laurie Simmons: Master of Puppets, Dirty, No.1, http://dirty-mag.com/v2/?p=3310

Laurie Simmons, Interview with Felipa de Almeida, Sur La Terre, Winter 2006-2007

Lucy Lippard. The Pink Glass Swan, Upward and Downward Mobility in the Art world. Feminist Collage, Educating Woman in the Visual Arts, Judy Loeb, Editor., p.111

interview

Calvin Tomkins, A Doll’s House, The New Yorker, 88.39 (Dec. 10, 2012): p34

Andy Grundberg, Photography View; Seeing the World as Artifical, The New York Times, March 27, 1983, 35.

Roland Barthes, The Death of the Author, …

interview on art21: Laurie Simmons: Photography, Perfection, and Reality

Laurie Simmons, Conversation: Laurie Simmons and Marvin Heiferman, art in America, april 2009 page 111

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