© Lorna Simpson
Currently not on view
Counting,
1991
anthropological photography in which pictures are regarded as evidence. While the meaning of Counting is deliberately open-ended, Simpson’s choices of cropping and framing resist traditional ways of presenting the black female body while nevertheless insisting on her presence.
More Context
<p>Simpson manipulates text and the photographic image to expose America’s social, historical, and political investments in the black body. <em>Counting</em> consists of three seemingly unrelated images stacked vertically: a coil of braided hair, a brick hut, and the upper torso, neck, and mouth of a black body. The placards that frame the images on three sides feature different kinds of counting: measures of time as well as numbers of twists, braids, locks, bricks, and years. Like many of Simpson’s "phototexts," <em>Counting</em> questions dominant techniques of observation and modes of classification that ascribe social meanings to the black female body. Similar to the allusions to labor, work, and care conveyed by the placards, the black female body can only be inferred in <em>Counting</em>, demonstrating that the experiences of black women exceed categories of seeing and knowing. </p>
Information
1991
North America, United States
