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Wigs (portfolio)
Lorna Simpson
 1994
 waterless lithograph on felt


For the past decade, Lorna Simpson's work has explored the role of hair as a marker of social identity. The 21 lithographic images in Wigs provide a taxonomy of hairstyles signifying gender, age, and race. The felt surfaces on which these images are printed present all of the hairstyles in the same texture, emphasizing and skewing our fixation on hair texture as markers of difference. By reminding us that wigs are hair that is unattached to a body, Simpson exposes hairstyle as an alterable or removable embellishment that may distort our understanding of what is natural or desirable in the human body.


Text Citation
Label text for Lorna Simpson, Wigs (portfolio) (1994), from the exhibition Selections from the Permanent Collection, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, December 8, 1996 to April 4, 1999.
Object Details
Dimensions:  installed 72 x 162 inches
Edition:  2/15 plus 5 A.P.
Printer:  Jeff Ryan, 21 Steps, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Publisher:  N.A.
Classification:  Other; Multiples
Owner:  Walker Art Center
Accession Number:  1995.22.1-.37
Credit Line:  T. B. Walker Acquisition Fund, 1995