547 Broadway
A Dolls-Eye View of Consumerism, Conformity
Laurie Simmons’ photographs, sculpture and film use staged set-ups with dolls and props to challenge conventional concepts of gender roles and critique American consumerism. In her dollhouse world, she creates familiar suburban scenes – a woman peering into an open refrigerator, a woman with a lipstick as big as she is. Simmons’ Kaleidoscope dollhouse might have inspired the set design for the movie Barbie. She relished living in pre-gentrified SoHo where she said, “everyone lived like outlaws and cowboys.”