Lorna SimpsonAmerican, 1960Untitled (6 Candles)
May one see it?
Yes, receiving visitors
Minneapolis Institute of Art
RoomG373Minneapolis, United States
On public display.
- Checked
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the work
The scale of Lorna Simpson’s “Untitled (Six Candles)” is deliberately monumental, composed as a grid of twenty-five black-framed Polaroid prints rising over ten feet high and nearly nine feet in width. Within each frame, a radically simple composition is repeated: a woman’s left hand rests upon a flat surface, the curve of her thumb and palm cradling a group of six lit, colored tapers; as the viewer’s eye moves from right to left, top to bottom, the flame consumes the candle wax, drawing itself ever closer to vulnerable flesh.
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Created during a residency with the Polaroid Foundation at the height of the AIDS epidemic, “Untitled (Six Candles)” reflected Simpson’s grappling with “death and absence, using candles to reflect the passing of time.” Simpson’s grant from Polaroid was arranged by the Aperture Foundation and gave her access to one of the only 20x24 inch Polaroid cameras in the world at that time. Fittingly, the camera was originally intended for medical research; in Simpson’s hands, it became a tool for creating twenty-five unique photographic prints that invoked the horrific loss of life due to HIV/AIDS in 1992–a year in which the virus was the leading cause of death for men ages 25 to 44 years old.
Minneapolis Institute of Art
Particulars
- Accession number
- 2025.44a-y
In the catalog
Sources
- Minneapolis Institute of Art
- Image: Minneapolis Institute of Art — © Minneapolis Institute of Art
