Double Negative

Description

Conceptual artist Lorna Simpson’s work derives its gut-punching power from the evocative, allusive, and deeply unsettling combination of words and images. Here, four stacked photographs of a braided hair piece are accompanied by text panels that slide down from “not” to “noose,” along the way invoking related words (including “knot”) to effect a devastating slippage between the loop of the hair and the loop of a noose. The title “Double Negative” refers not only to the repeated negative phrases (“not”) but also to the double and entwined burdens of racism and sexism that Black women endure.