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Artist/Maker Lorna Simpson (American, born 1960)

Printer Jeffrey Ryan , 21 Steps Productions

Date1995

MediumFull color electrostatic heat transfer on wool felt

DimensionsSheet: 12 in. × 15 1/16 in. (30.5 × 38.3 cm)

Credit LineGift of Rosina Lee Yue in honor of Bert A. Lies, Jr. MD, Class of 1960

Object number1998.3.4

On view

DescriptionIn the 1995 exhibition "Longing and Belonging: From the Faraway Nearby" at SITE Santa Fe, Lorna Simpson presented an immersive installation of work titled "Suspended." The presentation featured eighteen color electrostatic heat transfer prints on felt, two “floating” rectangular magnets, and a typed list of vague, tragic events. The eighteen felt prints were copied from late nineteenth and early twentieth-century tabloid newspapers, and included images of disturbing murder scenes, acts of war, deaths by suicide, etc. The typed list of tragedies, which was hung on an opposing wall (and also printed on felt), described events that could be connected to the eighteen images with varying levels of accuracy. Two perpendicular black magnets were then hung by a thread in front of the typed list, creating a harsh shadow against the wall. This dynamic presentation required viewers to traverse the space, looking for connections between image and text. The installation also required viewers to fill in the gaps left by a lack of detailed information. Thus, Simpson’s work made viewers complicit in the kind of vapid consumption of tragedy that has become more and more prevalent with the development of mass media. The hanging magnets highlighted this idea of tragic fascination, as they symbolized the simultaneous attraction and repulsion that humans experience in the face of horrific events. Two of the eighteen prints from Simpson’s installation have been combined in this felt print. On the left is a scene of “The suicide of two sisters” (as mentioned on the typed list), and on the right is “An execution in Madagascar.” The two tragic prints, which are both taken from editions of the French tabloid Le Petit Journal, are overlapped by flat black rectangles. These rectangles directly reference the hanging magnets from the 1995 installation, and again draw on the ideas of attraction and repulsion associated with the mass public consumption of tragedy.

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