Laurie Simmons

An exhibition of recent photographs by Laurie Simmons will be at Metro Pictures in New York from October 19 thru November 16. The show of "Lying Objects" is comprised of large-scale, black and white and color photographs in which Simmons continues the investigation of the commodification of the human body that began with her "Walking Objects" series of 1989. In the "Lying Objects" womens' legs in miniature are again attached to various objects as uncanny substitutes for the human body.

Included in the exhibition are eight 4' x 7' horizontal photographs executed in 1990-91. In these dramatically lighted, evocative works, objects such as a perfume bottle, hand gun, classic accordion, world globe, antique book, and plaza fountain, are combined with the legs in variously prone positions. "Magnum Opus (the Bye-Bye)," a 9' x 18-1/2' multi-panelled photograph which the artist describes as a "portrait" of the objects in the series, sums up Simmons' engagement with this subject.

In a recent essay on Simmons' work, Dan Cameron writes in Flash Art " ...this work finds Laurie Simmons making art which builds a strong case for correctly positioning her at the forefront of her generation. Again, she is not suddenly dealing with extreme concerns of either angst or media critique, but what has changed is that the seemingly narrow set of issues which she first established for herself are now able to bear much greater weight in terms of their scope and reference."

Laurie Simmons lives in New York and has exhibited her work at Metro Pictures since its opening in 1980. She also shows at Jablonka Galerie in Cologne, Daniel Weinberg Gallery in Los Angeles and has exhibited extensively in one-person and group exhibitions both nationally and internationally, recently the 1991 Whitney Biennial and a one-person exhibtion at the San Jose Museum of Art. Currently her work can be seen in the exhibition "Pleasures and Terrors of Domestic Comfort" at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.