Details
Lorna Simpson
American, born 1960
1996
A small photogravure that isolates interlaced hands and a partially obscured head, using close cropping and a single-word caption to probe emotional distance and the fragments of personal narrative.
At first glance the image reads as a quiet, grainy close-up—the tactile weight of the hands and forearms is emphasized by soft blacks and greys while the face slips into shadow, and the lowercase word “separated” beneath the picture gives the scene a poignant, unresolved hush.
Simpson’s pairing of fragmented body parts with text helped expand photographic portraiture into a language of suggestion and memory, challenging viewers to assemble identity and story from absence as much as presence.
Medium
Photogravure
Dimensions
10 × 8" (25.4 × 20.3 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of Helen Kornblum in honor of Roxana Marcoci
Accession
44.2021.10
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
