Details

Title

Transparent Wishes

Artist/Maker

Lorna Simpson (American, born 1960)

Date

1993

Medium

Glass

Dimensions

114 x 17 inches

Credit

Purchase for the Elson Collection of Contemporary Glass

Accession #

1995.34

On View

On View - Anne Cox Chambers Wing, Skyway, Gallery 424

Transparent Wishes consists of 100 cast glass wishbones cascading down the wall bearing a list of words: “after,” “remember,” “shift,” “forget,” “indulge,” “last,” “remedy,” “vary,” “recast,” “obliterate,” “deviate,” “reverse,” and “more time.” Without context, the meaning of these words is left up to the viewer. Together they comprise a list which is essentially a tool for categorization, classification and control. Thus, their lack of specificity here calls into question the power relationship – what feminist theorist and author Bell Hooks calls the “culture of domination” - between the describer and that object or person being described.

Image Copyright

© Lorna Simpson

More from this Artist