Laurie Simmons in London

03/10/2018

Laurie Simmons, Country Road, 1984. Courtesy of Amanda Wilkinson

American artist Laurie Simmons was one of the stars (others included Barbara Kruger, Louise Lawler and Cindy Sherman) of the ‘Pictures Generation’ which emerged in late 1970s New York and was characterised by an interest in representation, mass media and the appropriation of images and tropes. In the 1980s, when photographers like Richard Avedon and Patrick Demarchelier were becoming the talk of the town, Simmons created ‘Fake Fashion’: a series of photographs made in the style of fashion shoots, using clothes from thrift stores and with projected backdrops from her own oeuvre. The series was borne, she once said, of ‘a desire on my part to understand the construction of the fashion message’; they make us question what is real, and what is fake, in the often highly staged realm of fashion photography.

More information at: Amanda Wilkinson Gallery