Lorna Simpson Turns to Painting

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Lorna Simpson Turns to Painting"

Podcast Title: All Of It
Host: Alison Stewart
Episode: Lorna Simpson Turns to Painting
Release Date: May 20, 2025
Run Time: Approximately 18 minutes
Source: WNYC

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Introduction

In this episode of All Of It, hosted by Alison Stewart, WNYC delves into the artistic evolution of renowned photographer and multimedia artist Lorna Simpson as she transitions from her celebrated work in photography to the realm of painting. The conversation provides an intimate look into Simpson's creative process, her inspirations, and her latest exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art titled "Source Notes."

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Lorna Simpson’s Artistic Journey

From Photography to Painting

Lorna Simpson, a New York native, is acclaimed for her meticulously staged photographic works. Alison Stewart introduces Simpson by highlighting some of her notable pieces such as "Five Day Forecast" and "Wigs," which have graced prestigious institutions like the Walker Art Center, LACMA, Rijksmuseum, and MoMA.

Alison Stewart: "[...] about 10 years ago, Lorna began using her creative mind towards something new. Well, it was old, but painting" (00:09).

Simpson recounts her initial foray into painting during her time at the School of Visual Arts (SVA), where she was required to take foundational courses in painting, photography, and sculpture.

Lorna Simpson: "I did. As a foundation art student, you had to take foundation courses in painting and photography and sculpture. And so yes, I did." (01:17)

However, she gravitated towards photography, influenced by her peers who excelled in painting.

Lorna Simpson: "Because I had so many friends who were so much better at it than I was... And I found myself spending a lot of time in the darkroom and learning photography." (01:34)

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Return to Painting: A New Chapter

Motivation and Process

A decade later, Simpson felt compelled to revisit painting, experimenting with small drawings and collages before scaling up her work. This shift marked a significant departure from her structured photographic compositions.

Alison Stewart: "When you decided to return to painting, what changed for you? What changed in the way you saw the world that you thought, you know what, painting seems like the right idea?" (01:56)

Lorna Simpson: "I started incrementally, I think. I started making small drawings and collages and completely the opposite in terms of scale of what I normally do, but enjoyed in terms of my process as an artist." (02:07)

She describes painting as a "dance" between intentional creation and allowing the medium to guide the outcome.

Lorna Simpson: "It's this kind of dance in a way between just making something and letting the process take over rather than trying to control it." (02:46)

Physicality and Scale

Simpson emphasizes the physical demands of painting, especially on a large scale, which starkly contrasts with the more controlled environment of photography.

Lorna Simpson: "The physicality of it, I did not realize. And it's a very physical activity, which is quite wonderful." (03:42)

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"Source Notes" Exhibition at the Met

Exhibition Overview

Simpson's latest exhibition, "Source Notes," showcases over 30 paintings created between 2014 and 2024, including a newly acquired piece by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The show features large-scale, bold works that maintain Simpson's signature thematic elements.

Alison Stewart: "It's open at the Met. It displays more than 30 works from 2014 to 2024..." (00:09)

Highlighted Works

"True Value" and "Nightmare"

Two standout pieces, "True Value" and "Nightmare," serve as thematic bookends to the exhibition. "True Value" is a portrait of a woman holding a leopard on a leash, with the faces swapped, echoing a previous photographic collage by Simpson.

Lorna Simpson: "I made a small collage, it's out of JET magazine... and switch the face of the woman with the face of the cheetah." (07:58)

"Nightmare" depicts the iconic image of Carrie from the 1970s film, reimagined to enhance its eerie quality.

Unknown Speaker: "It is the image of Carrie in one of the scenes where she's in a nightgown." (09:31)

"Did Time Elapse?"

A significant addition to the Met’s collection, "Did Time Elapse?" is a large portrait inspired by a 1929 event in Mississippi involving a meteorite and its impact on a Black man, Ed Bush.

Lorna Simpson: "The inspiration was from a text from Smithsonian clipping... where a landowner is reporting that his Negro tenant observation of a meteorite that falls at his feet." (10:48)

Simpson purchased an authentic meteorite and incorporated its unique markings into the painting, reflecting her lifelong fascination with rocks and meteorites.

Lorna Simpson: "There are different kinds of markings that look like fingerprints for certain kinds of meteor." (12:19)

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Creative Processes and Influences

Rituals and Environment

Simpson shares insights into her creative rituals, notably the role of music in her studio.

Lorna Simpson: "Music. When I first started painting, my studio assistant, James Wang, and I would just play Frank Ocean over and over..." (05:17)

Completion and Reflection

She discusses how she determines when a painting is finished, often sensing when additional work might compromise the piece.

Lorna Simpson: "That sense that if I continue, I might mess it up." (05:48)

Simpson also reflects on moments of overworking a piece, leading to its eventual abandonment.

Lorna Simpson: "[...] trying to control it, trying to make it different, it usually does not come out very well." (06:16)

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Personal Reflections and Tributes

"For Beryl Wright"

Simpson explains the significance of "For Beryl Wright," a tribute to a former curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago who played a pivotal role in her early career.

Lorna Simpson: "Beryl Wright was a curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago... For me, in terms of curators and particularly black women kind of in the art world..." (12:58)

The painting honors Wright’s legacy and the influence she had on supporting Black women artists.

Integration of Sculpture

"Source Notes" also includes a sculpture made from Ebony and Jet magazines, bronze, plaster, and glass, addressing the spatial challenges of the Met's gallery.

Lorna Simpson: "It was nice to have because during this period of making painting, I made collages, which are also part of the show and also made sculpture." (16:13)

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Conclusion: An Invitation to Experience Art

Simpson encourages visitors to engage with her work on a personal level, allowing each individual to find their own connection within the expansive collection.

Lorna Simpson: "I think the Met is so huge and encyclopedic and so many things to look at... you never know what lingers two hours later in a conversation over coffee." (17:33)

Alison Stewart wraps up the conversation by highlighting the ongoing exhibition's availability, inviting listeners to experience Simpson's multifaceted artistry firsthand.

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Key Quotes

• Lorna Simpson: "It's this kind of dance in a way between just making something and letting the process take over rather than trying to control it." (02:46)
• Lorna Simpson: "The physicality of it, I did not realize. And it's a very physical activity, which is quite wonderful." (03:42)
• Lorna Simpson: "There are different kinds of markings that look like fingerprints for certain kinds of meteor." (12:19)
• Lorna Simpson: "I think the Met is so huge and encyclopedic and so many things to look at... you never know what lingers two hours later in a conversation over coffee." (17:33)

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Final Notes

Listeners are encouraged to visit the "Source Notes" exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, running through November 2nd, to explore Lorna Simpson's diverse body of work that bridges photography, painting, collage, and sculpture.

Transcript

[Alison Stewart]

This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. Lorna Simpson is a celebrated photographer and multimedia artist. Her work is staged with care. Take five Day Forecast. Five pictures of a black woman's torso that shifts slightly. Each is labeled A day of the Week and underneath there are words like misinformation, misidentify, misdiagnose, misfunction, or take her work wigs, consisting of 20 images of wigs coupled with text explaining why the wigs were important to the wearer. Her works have appeared at major art museums around the world. The Walker, LACMA, Rijksmuseum, MOMA. I could keep going, but about 10 years ago, Lorna began using her creative mind towards something new. Well, it was old, but painting. A new exhibition of her work just opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It displays more than 30 works from 2014 to 2024, including a piece that the Met just acquired this year. The work is big and bold and it looked like Lorna Simpson's work. The show is titled Lorna Simpson. Source notes Born and raised in New York, she joins us in studio now. It is really nice to meet you.

[Lorna Simpson]

Really nice to be here. Thank you.

[Alison Stewart]

Originally, when you were studying back in the old days and you went to sva, you had to take a course in painting, isn't that right?

[Lorna Simpson]

I did. As a foundation art student, you had to take foundation courses in painting and photography and sculpture. And so yes, I did.

[Alison Stewart]

Why didn't you stick with painting? Why did you veer towards painting?

[Lorna Simpson]

Because I had so many friends who were so much better at it than I was.

[Alison Stewart]

Seriously?

[Lorna Simpson]

Seriously. Much faster, much more interesting. And I found myself spending a lot of time in the darkroom and learning photography. So I kind of went by how much time I was staying with a particular activity and that was photography.

[Alison Stewart]

When you decided to return to painting, what changed for you? What changed in the way you saw the world that you thought, you know what, painting seems like the right idea?

[Lorna Simpson]

I started incrementally, I think. I started making small drawings and collages and completely the opposite in terms of scale of what I normally do, but enjoyed in terms of my process as an artist. The intimacy of making something small, making something with your hands that kind of just happens immediately as opposed to video. And then I thought about, well, what would it look like? Kind of a large scale version, and tried scaling it up. Not with the idea that, oh, now I'm a painter and I'm making paintings for a show, but just as an experiment.

[Alison Stewart]

How did it feel to Paint Strange.

[Lorna Simpson]

Strange how it's a muscle, in a way, and kind of executing you kind. I had to think about releasing my control of how I thought it was gonna come out or what it was going to look like. So it's this kind of dance in a way between just making something and letting the process take over rather than trying to control it.

[Unknown]

That must have been so different from your photography.

[Lorna Simpson]

Absolutely complete opposite.

[Unknown]

Because you staged. Staged less.

[Lorna Simpson]

No. Yes, that's a correct term. Stage.

[Unknown]

Yeah. You can stage your photography, but you can't necessarily stage how a painting's gonna come out.

[Lorna Simpson]

You could try and. Yeah, and it may or may not come out, but that is very true. So there's this kind of intuitive way of working that I really enjoyed and just continued making it.

[Unknown]

What surprised you about painting how physical it is? Oh, interesting.

[Lorna Simpson]

So I'd forgotten that. But I do work large in terms of scale. So for different works, the amount of time and some of them are so large that they get painted on the floor. But yeah, the physicality of it, I did not realize. And it's a very physical activity, which is quite wonderful.

[Unknown]

Well, I was going to say the paintings are substantial. They're really rather large. How was it spending so much time on a painting when with a photograph, it can be. It's not instant, but it's.

[Lorna Simpson]

No. There's an instantaneous. And you already have an expectation conceptually of what you're making. So therefore you are. It falls within the realm of forecast of what's going to happen, particularly the way I worked. This, on the other hand, presented so many accidents or trying to retrieve it or pulling back from adding too much. So much, as I said before, kind of a dance between my hand, what I kind of my intention in terms of the image and how the inks and the paint might apply or work on it. But it was a thing of discovery and still is 10 years later.

[Alison Stewart]

My guest is Lorna Simpson. We're talking about an exhibition of paintings by Lorna Simpson. It's open at the Met. It's called Lorna Simpson, source notes. It's running through November 2nd. Many artists have rituals in their studios about when they paint. Do you have any rituals?

[Lorna Simpson]

Music.

[Alison Stewart]

What kind of music do you like to listen to?

[Lorna Simpson]

Well, it's funny. When I first started painting, my studio assistant, James Wang, and I would just play Now I'm forgetting Frank Ocean over and over to the point. Other people working in my studio, like, could we change it? And we were like, no. So there is this thing. It is nice to have music and to kind of have that be kind of filling the space while I work.

[Alison Stewart]

How do you know when you're done for the day?

[Lorna Simpson]

That sense that if I continue, I might mess it up. And so when I get that sense of don't do too much or take some time and look at what you're doing, then that's definitely the time to stop for the day.

[Alison Stewart]

Ooh, when have you seen something a couple days later and thought like, oh, wait, I need to change this now.

[Lorna Simpson]

Sometimes, you know, I can work on something that has a duration to it, but I realize when I kind of dive in and I'm really working hard on something for days, or how can I just kind of trying to control it, trying to make it different, it usually does not come out very well. It usually ends up being a painting that I kind of discard or just so over. So, yeah, there's some balance between understanding that this doesn't work. That could be the image, that could be the way that I'm painting it. But yeah, there are moments that I've overdone stuff. And I was like, okay, that didn't help.

[Alison Stewart]

The title of the show is Source Notes. What does that mean?

[Lorna Simpson]

A lot of the material, kind of visual material and language that is part of the imagery is based on imagery from advertising, from Jet and Ebony magazines, mostly from advertising. So the models, in some ways not celebrities or not well known people that kind of are amplified within the magazine. But what you might overlook, and in that way, I think my interest in archive and photography is part of that idea. And that's the name of one of the paintings, the Source notes.

[Unknown]

The first painting you see if you come in one side, is called True Value. It's this portrait of a woman holding a leopard on a leash, only the.

[Alison Stewart]

Faces have been switched.

[Unknown]

And it is a takeoff of a photograph you did that was like that. It was called the Infers.

[Lorna Simpson]

Yeah, from a collage. So actually, and now I feel bad because I don't have my material of exactly. But it was a photograph taken by a well known photographer, of course, whose name at this moment, because I'm tired from last night, was the opening of a woman standing in a driveway with a tailored jacket and matching skirt that had a leopard pattern with a leopard on a leash. And I thought it was the craziest image that I'd ever seen in my life. And so I made a small collage, it's out of JET magazine, it's really, really small. And just switch the face of the woman with the face of the. Or cheetah. With the face of a cheetah. And then years later, I, in the process of making paintings, thought, oh, that would make an amazing painting. Let me try that.

[Alison Stewart]

How did it work out?

[Unknown]

How did it feel to you to be able to see the picture, to the painting.

[Lorna Simpson]

Again? You know, the thing of scale, blowing it up doesn't necessarily mean that makes it more interesting. So it is always a question. Although I love the collage and its intimacy and the simplicity of its absurdity. But, yeah, it was. I wasn't sure that that would kind of work once at a different scale and kind of painted and made as though the photograph or the image is like lurking in kind of this darkness of a woman with a cheetah with a woman on the leash.

[Unknown]

And if you come into the gallery from the other side, you get to see Nightmare, which is also huge. And it's the image of Carrie.

[Lorna Simpson]

Yeah. From the film, the 70s film. From a kind of promotional still.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Lorna Simpson]

Of Carrie in one of the scenes where she's in a nightgown. And again, I just kind of switch one element of its kind of eeriness of that image.

[Unknown]

It was sort of interesting to see them as bookends to the show. Did you plan it that way or.

[Lorna Simpson]

I didn't plan it way. Those two paintings were made around the same time. So I did have. In a lot of these paintings, the figures are ghostly or like this kind of half human, half animal in those early works. So for the exhibition, in terms of walking through it. Yes, it becomes this kind of loop through.

[Unknown]

The Met has just acquired a piece for its collection. It's titled Did Time Elapse? It's this large portrait of a meteor, a study of kind of black and gray. What was interesting to you about a meteorite?

[Lorna Simpson]

Well, I did an entire show.

[Unknown]

I saw it. Hauser and Wirth.

[Lorna Simpson]

Yeah, at Hauser and Wirth, November of last year. And what was fascinating for me is this kind of humans. We have a fascination with things that fall from the sky and their meaning and what they mean. And so the inspiration was from a text from Smithsonian clipping from a book that was talking about a particular fall in 1929, I believe, in Mississippi, where a land a white landowner is reporting that his Negro tenant observation of a meteorite that falls at his feet. And the amazing thing about that text is that you don't learn what the witness saw or what he felt about it. It's kind of mitigated by the landowner. So I take that text and that Becomes the kind of the violence for that particular time for black people in Mississippi. And this kind of phenomenon of a meteorite falling at this black man's feet. And those two things, that environment and something falling into that environment as at his feet. I found a really interesting starting place to think about meteorites.

[Alison Stewart]

And his name was Ed Bush.

[Lorna Simpson]

Ed Bush. Thank you. Yes.

[Alison Stewart]

I read this on the Internet. So you know, it's the Internet. Did you buy a meteorite on ebay?

[Lorna Simpson]

Yes, I did. Okay, so wait a minute. And you ask, like, how do you know? How did you know that was. I used to collect rocks as a child and had a fascination with meteorites and with rocks of all sorts. So I took a deep dive. And there are different kinds of markings that look like fingerprints for certain kinds of meteor. And this particular stone from the photographs that I looked at, had these markings, which is when the meteorite can still be intact, but entering into the atmosphere, it kind of has this dappled, as though you made fingerprints or dappling on its surface.

[Alison Stewart]

My guest is Lorna Simpson. Her exhibition of paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is called Lorna Simpson's Source Notes. It's running now through November 2nd. There's a painting titled For Beryl Wright. Would you explain who Beryl Wright is?

[Lorna Simpson]

Yes. My first exhibition, and I think I was maybe around 30 years old, and I had a quite large survey of my photographic work. And Beryl Wright was a curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, and she invited me to make this exhibition on my work with the catalog with Sarah Dia Hartman. And it was a really amazing experience for me. Much like an artist seeing your work in a kind of context of a survey, it takes a moment to take that in. So through the conversations and the exhibition of the work, it really also changed the way I made work. That exhibition kind of after that point, which was amazing. And Beryl then died, I think maybe about 10 or 15 years after that. And so for me, in terms of curators and particularly black women kind of in the art world, the struggles of kind of being chief curator, of having by institutionally supported for the work that they do, but also supported, not. I mean, my show was successful, but also supported kind of for the course of their careers, that it's not just a one time thing. So Beryl Wright is no longer alive in order to see many of the artists that she supported at the MCA and kind of what has happened since, but thought while I was making these paintings, there were these two paintings that I needed to move to another part of the studio on an A frame, which is this kind of rolling cart that you put paintings on and move them around studio to make room for other paintings. And these two paintings were there for months, just situated next to one another. And I was like, I don't want to break them up. This is a beautiful diptych. And then titled it.

[Unknown]

This is interesting because this brings me to a question which I tried to rephrase about four different times. And I'm not sure it makes sense. So if it doesn't make sense, tell me to move on. So I looked at all these paintings and these women are kind of appearing of your various paintings. And I wondered, did you envision the woman there? Or were they a surprise to the viewer? Or were you putting them there because they're supposed. They were always supposed to be there.

[Lorna Simpson]

I think it goes between ghosts and mirage or a presence. All of them, in terms of this body of work, do have this presence. And it kind of goes in different forms of transparency and. Or illusion. Why that is that they are always present in some form.

[Unknown]

My guest is Lorna Simpson. You can see her work at the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Excuse me. It is called Lorna Simpson. Source notes. There is a piece of sculpture five properties over to the left hand side. It's made of ebony and jet magazines, bronze, plaster and glass. It's a table stacked with magazines. It's got a little figurehead on it, woman's figurehead. And underneath it looks like ice, but it's glass. Why did you want to include this in the show?

[Lorna Simpson]

Good question. I think you know the space, the Kimmelman Gallery at the Met. It's a long space. It doesn't give you a lot of opportunities to place sculpture in it. And it is in some ways slightly difficult space, I think, for the scale and the. That was allotted. It was nice to have because during this period of making painting, I made collages, which are also part of the show and also made sculpture. So it was a way, as a survey to show a selection of maybe all these different bodies of work that happened over this course of time.

[Unknown]

When people go see the show and they should. Where would you like them to spend an extra minute or two? What piece would you like people to.

[Lorna Simpson]

Oh, I can't direct that. I think it's amazing for, you know, people to come and to go see art and to spend any time of just looking, enjoying it with, going with someone and whatever draws them. I think the Met is so huge and encyclopedic and so many things to look at that any kind of Even if people just walk in for five minutes and walk out, you know, you never know what lingers two hours later in a conversation over coffee and that gets mentioned. Yeah.

[Unknown]

The exhibition is called Lorna Simpson, source notes. It's at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Thank you for making the time to be with us today.

[Lorna Simpson]

Oh, my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

[Unknown]

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