Lorna Simpson

Born Brooklyn, NY, 1960.  Lives Brooklyn, NY

Still, 1997
Serigraph on felt, thirty-six panels
121 ½ x 217 9/16 inches overall
Collection Miami Art Museum, museum purchase with funds from Rosa and Carlos de la Cruz and Nedra and Mark Oren

Credit line: Reproduced with the permission of the artist, courtesy of Sean Kelly Gallery
Photo credit: Nancy Robinson Watson

Still is a single, large photograph silkscreened onto thirty-six felt panels.  The image recalls the landscape traditions of 19th century paintings and early 20th century photography.  The photograph seems to hover on the surface of the felt, creating an effect similar to early photogravure.

A closer look into the beauty and reverie of the natural environment reveals captions describing actions between couples scattered throughout the image.  Still is an actual film still from Simpson's first film project.  In the film, couples fade in and out of sight in the woods beside the lake.  In the photograph, all that is visible is an empty landscape and the text.  In this work, the landscape endures while the actions of the human protagonists are rendered as fleeting events, insubstantial and perhaps unimportant in the face of passing time.