Laurie Simmons
Born 1949, Far Rockaway, New York
1971 BFA Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia
Selected museum exhibitions: Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (2018); Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts (2016); Jewish Museum, New York (2015); Gothenburg Museum, Sweden (2012); New York Public Library (2010); The Nassau County Museum of Art, New York (2007); Baltimore Museum of Art (1997); San José Museum of Art (1990); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (1987); PS1 Contemporary Arts Center, New York (1979); University of Rhode Island, Kingston (1979)
Selected honors: Spotlight Award, International Center of Photography (2016); Aurora Award (2012); Roy Lichtenstein Residency, American Academy in Rome (2005); John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship (1997); National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship (1984)
Selected public collections: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Hara Museum, Tokyo; Metropolitan Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Modern Art; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Whitney Museum of American Art
Since the mid-1970s, Simmons has staged scenes for her camera with dolls, mannequins, objects, and sometimes people. Playing with scale and juxtaposing human features with inanimate things, Simmons creates disarmingly humorous images with social, political and psychological subtexts. Walking Hot Dog, 1991, is from her Walking and Lying Objects, a series she produced from 1987 through 1991, in which she attached domestic objects to human legs, rendering them both anthropomorphic and absurd. In this large-scale photograph, a phallic hot dog appears to be walking or dancing with feminine high-heeled shoes, playfully invoking signs of gender while also suggesting our desire for food.