A work like Backdrops Circa 1940 is on first impression dreamy and nostalgic, glowing with an enchanting retro charisma that only gains in momentum when you read the almost perfunctory text describing the scenes. Carving a space for someone to be seen by the simple act of mechanical description more than simply comments on the pervading issues of race in America, it directly surmounts the problem with a brilliant rewrite that is immediately effective. Simpson’s mastery and adeptness are perhaps what have carried her works into the spotlight again and again, an intrinsic measure of grace and attitude that work hand in hand. The figures in this diptych are of an unidentified black woman and of a fragment of Lena Horne, American singer, dancer, actress and civil rights activist born in 1917 in Brooklyn, whose career spanned over 70 years appearing in film, television and theater and brought her from the chorus of New York’s infamous Cotton Club alongside the likes of Duke Ellington at the age of 16 through becoming a nightclub performer and moving to Hollywood. This work exhibited at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2000 and is in the permanent collection.
|