In Episode 8 of The Art Career Podcast, we chat with artist, photographer and filmmaker, Laurie Simmons, about her refreshing love for observing and her life-long urge to call out how absurd the intersections of life, art, and consumption can be. With all of the unexpected obstacles that life brings us, Laurie Simmons shares how looking and listening helped herself achieve things she never thought possible.
A prominent member of the Pictures Generation, photographer and filmmaker Laurie Simmons uses dolls, puppets, and other anthropomorphized subjects to explore objectification, domesticity, and American consumerism—their effect on women in particular. Since the 1970s, she has photographed miniature scenes of post-war domestic splendor, shot a series focusing on a custom-made Japanese “love doll,” and made a debut feature starring Meryl Streep alongside a cast of puppets and Alvin Ailey dancers dressed as inanimate objects. Simmons has enjoyed solo shows in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, London, Berlin, Brussels, Madrid, and beyond. Laurie Simmons is an artist that's happier now, more than ever before in her career. With decades of masterful, critically acclaimed work, she’s managed to do something that most artists don’t do, which is to keep herself interested.