Lorna Simpson

This Essay was by far my favorite. I dreaded the fact that it was a million pages long but once I started reading I couldn't stop. I really enjoyed the descriptions and study of all the images however I got fixated on the portion of the Negation of portraiture. Hiding the face in her portraits was my favorite aspect of Lorna Simpson. It adds that other dimension to the image in its ability to "abolish the facade and the distraction of the gaze". This was an exact complement to the argument I was making in my second essay about Distortion No.6. It is crucial that the face it cut out, adding that other element of excitement. You don't have to look the person, the naked woman in this case , in the eye. You are in her personal space, you are up close, in the image with the subject, and it allows you to be free and roam the photograph without feeling uncomfortable as though you are harassing the woman. You don't know who the naked woman is in Distortion No.6 neither do you know the Woman in Simpson's Twenty Questions. Also the notion of interference comes up again in the description of her photo Twenty Questions. The image is followed by a series of questions asking you to examine the phtograph and define the subject as either pretty, clear, pure or black. She does not have a name: she is merely a description or a number titled by her looks."This is the function of the negated portrait, to open us up to the original sin fundamental to the miasma of racial hysteria".